Countries around the world are rapidly deploying renewable energy generation to reduce carbon emissions. Countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) are investing heavily in PV generation due to their rich solar resources. As PV technology becomes more mature, future PV developments will largely depend on the cost of the PV generation but there is currently very limited published work that shows a detailed design and in particular the economic analysis of large-scale PV farms. Therefore, this paper uses the Qatar’s first PV farm, the 800MWp Alkarsaah PV farm as a case study to explain the design considerations and especially the economic benefits of large-scale PV farms. Economic comparisons will be made with the most efficient CCGT (combined cycle gas turbine) plants in the network to highlight the economic benefits of PV farms. The results show that the Levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) for this PV farm is 14.03$/MWh, much lower than the LCOE of 39.18$/MWh and 24.6$/MWh from the most efficient CCGTs in the network, highlighting the significant economic benefits of developing PV farms in a low carbon power networks in the future.

The electricity demand keeps increasing with development and time, which leads to the need to install more generating units in the grid. Therefore, the fault current levels will rise above the limits of the electrical equipment, particularly when the electric grid becomes meshed and interconnected with neighboring networks. Consequently, the electrical equipment needs to be replaced or use a method that will decrease the fault current to be within the permissible boundaries. The existing solutions such as neutral impedance, current limiting reactor (CLR), and bus splitting have negative impacts on the electric grid. The superconducting fault current limiter (SFCL) appears to be a promising solution. In this paper, the resistive SFCL is proposed to enhance the stability of the interconnected power system. The two-area system is used as a case study for the interconnected power system. Also, the optimal value and locations of the resistive SFCL are analyzed. The results show that the system will remain stable without tuning the power system stabilizer (PSS).