ISRAEL-OPT: Tiny energy project helps Palestinian villagers
HEBRON, 16 June 2009 (IRIN) - Noam Dotan, an Israeli physicist, checks the wind turbine in the small West Bank village of Susya. The renewable energy project he started two years ago is making progress and improving the lives of local villagers, he said.
Some 2,000 Palestinians who live in Susya and nearby villages in Masafer Yatta, in the southern Hebron Hills near the Palestinian town of Yatta, occasionally move their tents a few hundred yards in search of grazing land. Their sheep and goats produce small quantities of cheese and butter.
The community lives in caves and tents, with no electricity or running water. In winter they use whatever rainwater there is, and in the six to seven months of summer they buy water from local vendors.
In the past, Palestinians in the area were employed in construction and odd jobs in nearby Jewish settlements, the biggest of which is Carmel with about 450 people. The rest are smaller, varying from 10-100 people. All have electricity, water and proper roads. However, relations between the two communities deteriorated and the Jewish settlers no longer employ Palestinians.
Dotan and another physicist, Elad Orian, first conducted a needs assessment with the local villagers and discovered that their main needs were water and energy. “While our ability to help with the water situation was limited, we had viable solutions for supplying energy,” Orian told IRIN.
The project in Susya comprises a one kilowatt per hour (peak output) wind turbine, and a 250 watts per hour (peak output) solar array, allowing the villagers to run two communal butter churners and lighting for 7-8 families.
The villagers can now also use the new power source, rather than car batteries, to recharge their mobile phones. They have no access to landlines.
A number of 50-watt panels have also been distributed to individual families further away from the village centre.
Electric butter churners
The two butter churners each use about 300 watts an hour during which time they each produce about 20 litres of butter. Some 120 liters of butter is produced a day. This allows the women, who used to churn it manually, to do other tasks. They sell the surplus butter and cheese in nearby Yatta and use the cash to buy water and other basics.
“It is a new thing, and very good,” said one of the women as the new butter churner was operating. According to the villagers, the production of butter has already doubled.
Dotan and Orian stress that all activities were decided jointly with the villagers’ local committee. A local blacksmith constructed the wind turbine and the villagers were trained in the maintenance of the solar panels, allowing them to move them as they move in search of grazing for their herds.
Future plans include installing 40 more basic domestic solar systems in three communities, similar to those already installed; the construction of two small community utility centres - each serving about 10 families and including a fridge and butter churner; and the construction of a pilot water pumping and filtration system in Susya.
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Theme(s): (IRIN) Economy, (IRIN) Environment
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Copyright © IRIN 2009
This material comes to you via IRIN, the humanitarian news and analysis service of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the United Nations or its Member States.
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