Renewable Energy to Improve Livelihoods in Palestinian Rural Areas

Palestine

This project aims at enhancing access of poor rural communities in areas of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to modern energy services through a combination of technology solutions. These solutions include the installation of photovoltaic solar panels for electricity generation, biogas generation from biological wastes through composting, introducing solar cookers and building a local value chain for producing them in the target communities, in addition to training and capacity building activities. The total direct beneficiaries from the project will be approximately 427 families, approximately 3000 persons. Project Outputs and Achievements: 1. Undertook an assessment report in West Bank and Gaza about the gap analysis for energy and prospective for improvements in Palestine; 2. Installed the net-metering photovoltaic (PV) system on each of Tubas’s main public buildings (103 KW). This electricity amount saved a cost of EUR 1315 per month, which was redirected to improving other services delivered to citizens. Moreover, 6 engineers and 4 IT persons were trained to run and manage the established system efficiently, and a committee from them was formulated to follow-up and monitor the performance of the established PV system and platform. The calculations shows that the annual rate for installing new PV systems by Tubas District Electricity Company (TDECo) prior to the starting of the project reached 0.58 MWp/year; while during the project like the installation rate of PV systems by TDECo reached 0.85 MWp/year. This shows the impact of awareness campaigns and capacity building and the improvement in the related stakeholders’ awareness towards the importance of installing new PV systems that the project had performed (Source: TDECo, 2017). 3. Designing and establishing the innovative WEB platform in both languages; Arabic and English. 4. Encouraging similar initiatives and replication of the project at other municipalities or places. Additionally, the project partners at Tubas Municipality and Tubas District Electricity Company (TDECo) participated in several events to disseminate project results to other potential initiatives. 5. Provision of theoretical and practical training sessions to Tubas Municipality employees and TDECo; results showed that the pre and post training tests showed a good impact for these trainings on improving the knowledge and awareness for the trained staff. Trainings were provided at an awareness approach for schools of Tubas. 6. Developing and disseminating the project common paradigm report about the project components which were shared with the members to understand the project components and outputs and also to benefit from the projects results.