Qatar Solar Technologies (QSTec), a member of Qatar Foundation, was recently awarded the ‘Best GCC Integrated Solar Company Award’ by World Finance magazine, a leading bi-monthly business publication.

QSTec won the award in recognition for its advancement along the solar value chain, said a statement from the company.

Dr Khalid Klefeekh Al Hajri, chairman and CEO, QSTec, was invited to attend the award ceremony, which was held at the London Stock Exchange (LSE) in London, UK.

Dr Al Hajri said: “We would like to thank Qatar Foundation, SolarWorld, Qatar Development Bank, Centrotherm and our staff for the instrumental role they have played in all of our successes.”

“This award serves as an affirmation that QSTec is realising its vision to become a world leading integrated solar company through a strategy that has seen it expand from Doha right across the world,” he said.

“The consortium between QSTec, SolarWorld and Centrotherm was developed to share knowledge, utilise each other’s key strengths and improve costs and efficiencies, and to win this award based on our strategic direction for advancement is very encouraging for QSTec and the region’s solar industry,” he added.

In the post-award interviews held at the LSE, Dr Al Hajri stated that the two greatest challenges for the renewable energy sector was the need to continually drive down costs to make renewables even more cost competitive with other forms of electricity production, and the need to make energy storage solutions more available, scalable and at a lower cost, said a statement.

However, he emphasised that the solution involved stakeholders uniting, in the interest of development, to overcome the fragmentation prevalent in the renewable energy industry and join together to address these key issues.

Dr Al Hajri further noted that the success of QSTec in constructing the first of its kind polysilicon production facility in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region coupled with its strategic investments will play a major role in shaping the region’s solar industry.

The facility will produce 8,000 metric tonnes of polysilicon and can expand along the value chain to produce over 45,000 tonnes of polysilicon a year. This is will enable the future production of 6.5 gigawatts of solar technologies each year, it added. – TradeArabia News Service