One of our recently completed infrastructure projects is the Ras Laffan Utilities Project, which was carried out for Qatar Petroleum. This project is one of the largest infrastructure projects currently being implemented in the country. The project involved complete infrastructure design for the extension of Ras Laffan City, covering an area of 3000 ha, which almost doubled its previous area.

This project, which was carried out by Qatar Petroleum, is one of the largest infrastructure projects implemented in the country.. Facilities designed included Electrical  Power Supply System including 132 kV,  33 kV  and 11 kV sub-stations, Water Supply, Sewage Collection System, Fire Water Network and a telecommunication network with Fibre Optic Cables, 41 pumping stations, large water reservoirs, telecom control rooms, etc.

Complete master planning, utilities demand calculations and design of transmission and distribution networks commencing from 132 kV level downwards were carried out. The utilities demand study commenced from scratch, and culminated in the detailed design for the large development.

One of the initial studies carried out by KEIC was the Load Density Study. KEIC adopted a mult-pronged approach to arrive at the optimum resuls.

At the commencement of the project, the project area was totally undeveloped, and profiles and nature of tenants was unavailable. With good coordination with RLC engineers, KEIC team developed energy profile or prospective tenants of the industrial area.

Another option considered was reference to International standards and codes of practices to find out generally adopted criteria for estimating load density for industrial areas and industrial parks.  However, review of literature available  at that time indicated that standards or codes that explicated a universal basis that could be adopted in such cases do not exist. The consultant approached GOIC (Gulf Orgnaization for Industrial Consultancy), Department of Industries and Kahramaa, as well as electric utility departments in some other GCC countries in this regard, but we were informed that specific guidelines for estimating Load Density for new developments were not available with them.  Specific consumption data from existing individual industrial establishments could also not be used since sufficient details regarding the industries that will be established in the supporting industries area were not available.

A Third approach adopted was study of an existing area similar developments in Qatar. Active help was provided by Kahramaa in this regard. A study of the nature of industries operating in the existing Industrial Area in Zone 57 (Salwa Road Industrial Area) indicated that this development had a good mix of units that compared well with the Master Plan List of Industries as far as energy requirement is concerned.  It was judged that the most reliable and practical way to develop the energy profiles were to depend on the records of actual consumption.  Kahramaa (KM) was approached for this information, which was kindly provided by them.

Due to the requirement to maintain privacy, full details of all the customers were not received from Kahramaa.  We have tried to get additional details, and wherever available, these have been included. Kahramaa consumers are classified as residential, commercial and industrial. Only industrial units were selected for the study, and monthly power and water consumption for each of these units for 17 months were obtained from Kahramaa.  By screening out commercial and residential developments, it was ensured that only data related to light industries was used. Applicable The load factor  was derived from this data.

The maximum demand was assessed from the load density arrived at and area after applying the applicable load factor. Reliability analysis was carried out on the results achieved, and statistical accuracy studied. Consolidated load estimated for the whole development was 200 MVA which was used to size the main substation within the project area namely, the  RLF-3 132/33/11 kV Substation. This substation was designed with 3 x 100 MVA Transformers. 

Similar studies were carried out for various utilities such as water, fire water, sewerage, etc.  The project had very tight utility corridors, which called for careful design of combined utility layout and clash detection. Successful planning and execution of this prestigious project gave us a unique experience in utilities and corridor design.