Solar panels are rapidly covering the roofs of homes in the Gaza Strip. However, the boom in photovoltaic cells is not a result of the environmental awareness of local Palestinians, but a pure necessity. Electricity from the grid is only available for eight hours a day and no one knows when it will be available and when it will not be available.
This summer, heat waves affected more than two million residents in the Gaza Strip. The small Palestinian isolated is sandwiched between Egypt and Israel. The electricity supply only works for a few hours a day, and fans and air conditioners are usually left on.
Interest in solar panels is growing in the Gaza Strip. Instead of ecology, it’s a matter of necessity
People in the Gaza Strip are increasingly turning to solar energy as an alternative. However, not everyone can afford it in a poor area.
“Electricity is sometimes only available during the day, sometimes only at night. Anyway, in 24 hours electricity is only eight. Infrequently. So I still buy from a private generator. So I pay 1,200 to 1,400 shekels a month ‘, says Maher Hara, who lives in Gaza in his own house and does not belong to the poor of refugee camps. 1,400 shekels pay the equivalent of about 10,000 kroner.
However, he says, he cannot afford to invest in solar panels. “Work is scarce now. A lot of costs. It’s hard. There was enough work. But under Hamas, everything has deteriorated.
The panels replace the generators
There are now quite a few shops in downtown Gaza offering solar panel systems. Given the prevailing conditions in the Gaza Strip, interest in it is rapidly increasing.
It depends on the system, but Gazans will now return their investment in solar panels within four years at most. But people and companies don’t have money here, so they often buy the system in installments,” admits Izz El-Din Jabali, an electrical engineer at a store in Gaza who supplies and installs solar panels.
Now all the people in the Gaza Strip are using solar energy as a solution. They were once diesel generators, but these days they are expensive to run, not to mention expensive to maintain.”
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Immediately, many people interested in solar panels bring to his shop, and some are already calculating with the sellers sitting at the table how much solar energy will pay off for them.
“If there was electricity, I would probably consider solar panels. But running the generator is expensive. It is true that the initial costs of solar panels are high, but in the long run you will have peace of mind,” says Mr. Walid.
He wants to install the panels in his own house. When he calculates how much he will pay for electricity now, he says the investment will be repaid in two to three years. “And for other resources, I will pay about a tenth of what I am paying now.”
Just so the war doesn’t destroy it
There is a large area of solar panels on the roof of the bakery. “This is an area of just over a dunam, and the other area is about 2 dunams, which is more than 3,000 square metres. All these panels together have a power of about 400 kW. This should be enough for me for all operations, including furnaces,” Trek points out. witness.
He is the owner of a bakery, and by the way he is a member of the Christian minority in Gaza, and as a businessman who thinks purely economically. “It should come back to us soon. Just so another war doesn’t destroy our entire investment. After all, we haven’t paid it yet.”
In problematic areas, such as the Gaza Strip, solar energy becomes a very economical alternative.
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