Turning to renewable energy
Jordan uses solar power to combat heavy reliance on imported energy
AMMAN: Set atop a mosque in the south of Jordan’s capital, dozens of shimmering solar panels reflect a growing trend in the resource-poor desert kingdom as it tries combat its heavy reliance on imported energy.
Standing in front of the Hamdan al-Qara mosque, Sheikh Adnan Yahya says that before installing the panels he used to pay up to 13,000 dinars (RM75,900) a year for electricity.
“The bill has now dropped to almost zero,” says the imam.
With panels popping up on the rooftops of homes, schools, hotels and factories across Jordan, the growing popularity of solar power is easy to spot.
The dishes and other desertbased solar fields are part of the kingdom’s drive to steer the country away from foreign energy and towards renewable options available domestically.
Jordan imports nearly 98% of its energy needs, and has long relied on gas, heavy fuel oil and diesel to run its power plants.
Each year, it pays more than US$4.5bil (RM18.6bil) on oil imports alone, according to official data.
Public debt exceeds more than US$40bil (RM165bil) in Jordan, rocked this summer by rare anti-austerity protests.
But a government plan to make clean energy 20% of the country’s overall power consumption by 2020 has seen alternative energy projects skyrocket in recent years.
At the beginning of this year, a set of 140 panels were affixed to the top of Sheikh Yahya’s mosque at a cost of US$45,000 (RM186,131) – generating nearly 44 kilowatts of energy.
The installation powers the 1,500-person capacity place of prayer, its 50 air conditioners, 35 fans, 120 lamps, 32 cameras and sound system.
The Hamdan al-Qara is one of 380 mosques and churches across Jordan that have been supplied with solar-power systems in the past five years, according to the energy ministry.
Last year, solar plants were opened at the Syrian refugee camps of Zaatari and Azraq, providing tens of thousands of people with free and clean electricity.
In Maan province, the kingdom’s largest which stretches from the south of the capital west to the border with Saudi Arabia, 11 renewable energy projects have been launched since 2012.
They include the Shams Maan solar plant.
Managed by a consortium of companies including Jordan’s Kawar investment group, Qatar’s Nebras Power and Japan’s Mitsubishi, the US$ 170mil (RM703mil) project generates 52.5 megawatts of electricity – one percent of the country’s electricity production.
“Solar energy will help Jordan save on the price of fuel purchased from abroad in hard currency and help it to be self-reliant in power generation,” says Hanna Zaghloul, Kawar’s chief executive.