Solar Power: the bright alternative in Palestine
“The sun shines 300 days a year in Palestine – and that’s all the system needs to operate.”
Moutasem Hassan is the recent founder of Concentrator Solar Power Palestine (CSPP), a startup company that provides sustainable energy systems for small farms and rural areas in Palestine. The idea originated through addressing the two main issues in the mainstream renewable energy systems: cost and efficiency.
“We can utilise the sun here in Palestine by using cheap and efficient systems to gain the upper hand on our energy supply.”
Once Moutasem’s enterprise is up and running with support from SPARK’s Enterprise Development Programme MFS-II, it will provide a medium-sized solar concentrator, made with local Palestinian materials, which ensures sustainability, efficiency and affordability. The solar concentrator is capable of safely producing a temperature range of 200-500 C. Small farms in Palestine are presently using the outdated method of either fossil fuels or wood which are both rare and expensive. Further to this, rural areas lack the access to basic cooking materials (such as Liquid Petroleum Gas) so this system is a lifeline. Farmers can use this solar concentrator for syrup production, milk pasteurization, roasting and cooking for most of the year, further ensuring that Palestinian farmers have market competition with the cheaper Israeli products.
Moutasem outlines that “we have built our GoSol.org prototype and tested it. At the moment, we are in the market research and community outreach phase. We are hoping this year to build and distribute dozens of these units.” Next Moutasem is presenting this product around Palestine, starting with Dalia Association in Ramallah. Moutasem’s venture is based on the technology and construction plans by GoSol.org, a global initiative to foster solar thermal energy access in the developing world. “I believe that scalable solar concentrators can be a game changer strengthening Palestine’s solar economy.”
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