Optimising Qatar's Energy Transition Through Model-Based Analysis
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Department of Chemical Engineering Optimising Qatar’s Energy Transition Through Model-Based Analysis By Moiz Abid Bohra A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Chemical Engineering March 2020 Copyright Declaration The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. Unless otherwise indicated, its contents are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- ShareAlike 4.0 International Licence (CC BY NC-SA). Under this licence, you may copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format. You may also create and distribute modified versions of the work. This is on the condition that; you credit the author, do not use it for commercial purposes and share any derivative works under the same licence. When reusing or sharing this work, ensure you make the licence terms clear to others by naming the licence and linking to the licence text. Where a work has been adapted, you should indicate that the work has been changed and describe those changes. Please seek permission from the copyright holder for uses of this work that are not included in this licence or permitted under UK Copyright Law. See https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ for a summary of the license terms. 2 Declaration of Originality This thesis is my own original work and has not been submitted previously for any other degree. All external sources of information are appropriately referenced. The following publications have resulted from my doctoral research: • Bohra, M., and Shah, N. ‘Optimizing Qatar’s energy system for a post-carbon future’. Energy Transitions (2019). Open access under Creative Commons license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (journal article) • Bohra, M. ‘Towards a low-carbon hydrogen economy in Qatar’. Oral presentation at the 1st International Conference on Sustainable Energy, Water and Environment Nexus, Doha, Qatar (Dec ’19). • Bohra, M., and Shah, N. 'Optimising the Role of Solar PV in Qatar’s Power Sector'. Paper and oral presentation at the 6th International Conference on Power and Energy Systems Engineering, Okinawa, Japan (Sep ‘19). • Bohra, M. ‘Flaring Gas’. Critical Muslim (Climate). (magazine article) (Aug ‘19) • Bohra, M and Shah, N. ‘Optimising Qatar’s Decarbonisation’, 2018 Annual Industrial Consortium Meeting (Centre for Process Systems Engineering, Imperial College London), presentation and poster (Dec ‘18) • Bohra, M., and Shah, N. ‘How to Diversify A Fossil-Fuel Economy: Optimising a Post-Carbon Future for Qatar’. Paper and oral presentation at the 41st International Conference of the International Association of Energy Economics, Groningen, Netherlands (June ’18) • Bohra, M., and Shah, N. ‘Alternative Energy Transition for Fossil-Fuel Reliant Economies: Case Study on Qatar’. Paper and oral presentation at the 12th Conference on Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems, Dubrovnik, Croatia (Oct ’17) 3 For my parents, Shirin and Abid, who made Qatar their temporary home for three decades 4 Acknowledgments (Praise be to God) I would like to thank my supervisor, Prof. Nilay Shah, for his timely guidance over these four years, who, despite his busy schedule, always finds the time to support his students. I am grateful to my sponsor, Qatar Foundation, for supporting my education since 2011, and specifically to Dr. Ayman Bassil at the Qatar National Research Fund, who has been a friendly adviser and excellent manager. I would also like to thank Omneya, Nuha and Susi at QF R&D, for their support. During my time in London I met my partner Anja who has been an incredible source of love and encouragement. I am thankful for her efforts to push me to achieve my potential. It is always difficult to move away from home, and family, but I am fortunate to feel the love of my parents, Shirin and Abid, and my sister, Zarine, no matter the physical distance between us. This thesis is dedicated to my parents, who made a home away from home, thus giving me opportunities that I wouldn’t otherwise have had. I am also grateful to old friends, and close relatives, with whom I share my hopes, dreams, fears, sadness and joy, and the new friends I made in London who are now like family. A heart-felt thanks to my friends at the Inclusive Mosque Initiative, where I found spiritual peace in a chaotic city, where I was challenged to expand the horizons of my thinking, where I forged close friendships within a diverse community, and where I first met Anja. I stand on the foundations created by generations of migrants, who lived, toiled and died in foreign lands across the Indian Ocean and all around the world. I acknowledge the contributions of my migrant ancestors in creating a better world for me. I hope to safeguard their legacy. 5 Foreword I grew up in Qatar. I spent most of my childhood close to Ras Laffan – the centre of Qatar’s gas industry. My father has worked for the national gas company for over twenty years. In high school, I participated in an Indian environment-themed quiz show. While preparing for this quiz, I first came across topics of environmental conservation, grassroots activism, ecological justice and climate change. I could no longer look at my home the same way – I now knew about the flipside of Qatar’s enormous hydrocarbon wealth. And yet, it was perhaps pre-destined that I would study chemical engineering, dream of following my father’s footsteps and make my own career in oil and gas. When I signed the contract that granted me a research scholarship from the Qatar Foundation, I had just turned twenty-one. I was not entirely sure what doing a PhD or committing to a career of research would entail. My doctoral research grew out of my experiences: from learning the tools of systems optimisation and data analysis in my engineering lectures, from understanding Qatar’s economic, political and social dependence on its hydrocarbon wealth as I grew up during the hydrocarbon boom, and from observing the environmental impacts of this hydrocarbon dependence, both at home and abroad. Alongside my academic work, my internships helped me look at the hydrocarbon industry from different viewpoints and helped me understand how systematic transformation can happen. I have also devoted some time to volunteering at local charities, including faith spaces, to learn the tools of community engagement. This PhD has been a journey of self-learning and self-reflection. Only by moving away from Qatar could I look back at my past and my family’s complex history. From the Arab origins of the Bohra community to the centuries-long Bohra presence in the Gulf, I have learnt about our shared histories, and claimed a seat at the table as a stakeholder in Qatar’s future. I hope that I can use my experiences, and my work, to make positive change in my world. Climate change is a terribly complex problem, and it will require something of us all if we are to remain responsible stewards of this world and leave a positive legacy for future generations. M.B. 6 Abstract The hydrocarbon industry has defined the last century of Qatar’s history. The growing threats from the climate crisis, and increasing global efforts at decarbonisation, pose risks to Qatar’s reliance on its energy industry. Wasteful consumption of energy resources domestically is also a major challenge. Although all ministries and energy companies are answerable to the state, energy policymaking is still siloed and may miss out on synergies within the energy system. This thesis describes the development and applications of a novel quantitative tool, QESMAT (Qatar Energy System Model and Analysis Tool), that was used to study the long-term evolution of Qatar’s energy system. It is a linear program that optimises technology investment and export strategy to maximise revenue for a centralised decision-maker. It can be used to assess the viability of a new technology or study the effects of a new policy. All major sectors are represented: residential, commercial, industrial, transportation and agriculture – QESMAT is the first multi-sector energy system optimisation model for Qatar. Original bottom-up projections for energy service demands were created across these sectors, based on demographics and other indicators. These guided the evolution of the domestic energy system. A stochastic uncertainty framework was also developed to aid decision-making under uncertainty – this is a novel methodological contribution as well. The results show that a significant transformation of Qatar’s energy system is technologically and economically feasible. Large amounts of solar PV can complement gas-fired power generation, while reverse osmosis can replace existing thermal desalination capacity. Electric and hydrogen vehicles can decarbonise the transport sector. The industrial sector shows a shift from LNG towards petrochemicals and steel, while low-carbon hydrogen has the potential to be the country’s next big export. A voluntary reduction of hydrocarbon exports to zero by 2050 is also explored. A ‘systems’ approach has the potential to help researchers, industry and policymakers transform Qatar’s destiny, its kismet, in a post-carbon world. 7 Table of Contents Abstract .............................................................................................................................................................. 7 Executive Summary..................................................................................................................................... 15 Ch. 1. Introduction ......................................................................................................................................