Tanweer el Heiz - Solar Rural Electrification Project

Overview

With an environmental and community development background, this project foresees overcoming the challenge of access to electrical power in a sustainable manner in el Heyz Village in Bahareya Oasis. It is designed as a first phase of the electrification of entire village. The first phase shall supply two hamlets of the village with electricity through solar power. It is also thought of as a replicable model for other community development organizations.

The idea of the project is to provide the village with individual SHS (Solar home systems) that would enable them to have access to electricity 24 hours a day. The project will fund for the purchase of the solar panels, batteries and all necessary equipment, while a counterpart contribution by the villagers will be institutionalized in order to sustain and maintain the equipment.

Providing vulnerable underprivileged rural households with a sustainable and environmentally friendly source of energy will improve quality of living. It will allow for covering their basic needs of food safety and security by making the operation of small fridges possible, providing a storage facility. This will also allow for the reduction of commute to the Bahareya Oasis for the purchase of goods on a daily basis, reducing transportation expenditures and the use of and dependency on fossil fuels. Currently, many villagers can’t even have a fan installed in their homes during the hot summer desert days. Having access to electricity, the youth in the village will also be able to study in the evenings since they typically have to help their parents in farming after school.

Purchased equipment has been transported to the village. During 6 visits to the village in the past months complete solar home systems of all 35 households were customized, assembled and installed, now fully functional. Panels were fixed to the structures and all fixed on the roof tops of the houses and the assembly boxes were prepared and fixed to the panels. Meanwhile, beneficiary households were briefed on the internal wiring of the houses and prepared these themselves. Batteries have been connected to the systems and all 59 households now have access to sustainable electricity

Two of the villagers were trained on site and participated in a training course at Chloride and BIC, our suppliers, in order to be able to install, maintain and troubleshoot the systems independently.

In addition the project is prepared a draft manual for the maintenance and operation of the solar home systems to be distributed among beneficiaries, complementing their capacity building. Negotiations with villagers are ongoing, while a consensus has been reached, that beneficiaries will sign a memorandum outlining the receipt of equipment for operation and their monthly contribution to the trust fund which has been calculated to be 30 LE monthly and approved by the beneficiaries. Battery life expectancy based on the system design should not be less than 4 years.

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