GAZA, Palestinian Territories — Palestinians
living in the
Gaza Strip have long endured an unstable and costly electricity
supply due to the numerous wars Israel has waged on the enclave as well as its
crippling blockade of the strip, so Yasser Al-Hajj found a different way: solar
power.
اضافة اعلان
Looking at the rows of photovoltaic panels at his
beachfront fish farm and seafood restaurant, The Sailor, he said the investment
he made six years ago had more than paid off.
“Electricity is the backbone of the project,” Hajj
said, standing under a blazing Mediterranean sun. “We rely on it to provide
oxygen for the fish, as well as to draw and pump water from the sea.”
The dozens of solar panels that shade the fish ponds
below have brought savings that are now paying to refurbish the business, he
said, as laborers loaded sand onto a horse-drawn cart.
Hajj said he used to pay 150,000 shekels ($42,000)
per month for electricity, “a huge burden”, before solar power slashed his
monthly bill to 50,000 shekels.
For most of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents, living
under a 15-year-old Israeli blockade, power cuts are a daily fact of life that
impact everything from homes to hospital wards.
While some Gazans
pay for a generator to kick in when the mains are cut — for around half of each
day, according to UN data — ever more people are turning to renewables.
From the rooftops of Gaza City, solar panels now
stretch out into the horizon.
Green energy advocates say it is a vision for a
global future as the world faces the perils of climate change and rising energy
costs.
Swap to green power
Gaza bakery owner Bishara
Shehadeh began the switch to solar this summer, by placing hundreds of gleaming
panels on his rooftop.
“We have surplus electricity in the day,” he said.
“We sell it to the electricity company in exchange for providing us with
current during the night.”
Solar energy lights up the bright bulbs illuminating
the bustling bakery, but the ovens still run on diesel.
“We are working on importing ovens, depending on
electrical power, from Israel, to save the cost of diesel,” said Shehadeh.
Both the bakery and the fish farm have relied
partially on foreign donors to kick-start their switch to solar, although their
owners are also investing their own cash.
But in a poverty-stricken territory where nearly 80
percent of residents rely on humanitarian assistance, according to the UN, not
everyone can afford to install renewable energy.
Around a fifth of Gazans have installed solar power
in their homes, according to an estimate published in April by the “Energy,
Sustainability, and Society” journal.
Financing options are available for Gazans with some
capital, like Shehadeh, who got a four-year loan to fund his bakery project.
Import restrictions
At a store selling solar
power kits, MegaPower, engineer Shehab Hussein said prices start at around
$1,000 and can be paid in installments.
Clients included a sewing factory and a drinks
producer, which see the mostly Chinese-made technology as “a worthwhile
investment”, he said.
Raya Al-Dadah, who heads the
University of Birmingham’s Sustainable Energy Technology Laboratory, said her family in Gaza
has been using simple solar panels that heat water for more than 15 years.
“The pipe is super rusty, the glass is broken, ...
and I just had a shower and the water is super hot,” she said during a visit to
the territory.
But Dadah encountered obstacles when she tried to
import a more sophisticated solar system for a community project in Gaza, where
imports are tightly restricted by Israel and Egypt.
“Bringing them to the Gaza Strip has proved to be
impossible,” she said.
The advanced set-up includes more efficient panels
and equipment that tracks the sun’s path.
Such technology is being used by Israeli firms such
as SolarGik, whose smart control systems factor in weather conditions and can
harness up to 20 percent more energy than standard panels, chief executive Gil
Kroyzer told AFP.
Across the frontier in Gaza, in the absence of such
high-tech equipment, Dadah relies on the standard panels to power a women’s
center and surrounding homes in the strip’s northern Jabalia area.
Despite the challenges, Dadah said solar energy
remains a “brilliant” option for Gaza, with its copious sunlight: “It is really
a very promising energy source, and it’s available everywhere”.
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