"As most of you know, Jordan today is edging and hoping for major reform; a whole makeover in terms of government, economy, and citizen lifestyle. But the fact still remains that our most obvious resources are not exploited in the least significant manner, and an estimated 96% of our energy needs are imported from abroad which accounts for more than 7.5% of our national income. The levels of energy and electricity consumption are expected to double in 15 years. Why should we bear this? And why are we not pushing harder for alternative energy solutions? This must change now.
Our beloved Jordan is considered to be one of the sun-belt countries, or a country which possesses high solar radiation on its horizontal surface. Each day, we wake up to a bright and shiny morning to get on with our lives, but why do we fail to notice the gleaming glory of the sun, a factor which we, as Jordanians, can make use off to lift our economic standing and pave the way for a new, energy independent Jordan? An answer which honestly beats me.
According to the Department of Statistics (DoS), domestic solar water heaters were used by 12 per cent of Jordanian families as of September 2010. What makes me lift my brow so surprisedly is the dodgy statistic that 26 per cent of Jordanians used to rely on solar systems in the 1990s. A 14% decrease, how can this be plausible? Are we a country that is moving forward in time and development or are we shrinking into corruption and black holes? I need to be assured as doubt has begun overcoming me.
Each solar water heater has the capacity to heat up to 150 liters of water, per day. According to the United Nations Development Programme, installing solar water heaters can significantly reduce agricultural waste since smoke produced through heating the water be decreased significantly. Household appliances used for heating water are also notorious for their green house gas emissions as they typically use oil or gas, and like hell we are in desperate need to cut our oil and gas consumption.
What is it exactly that I want you might be asking? What I need is an absolute reliance on domestic solar water heating systems in Jordan, an over 90% of houses with solar panels on their roof tops, a law insisting on the necessity of solar panels and provides loans for low-income familes to install them. That is what I want. Why should Spain, Israel, and Turkey be better than us in these regards, where solar water heating is standard practice in all homes? Why is our solar industry diminishing instead of expanding?
Now you are probably bobbing your head and ridiculing the idea as too expensive, that we don’t have the financial capabilities to do such a move. But the facts state otherwise. The cost of installing solar panels for domestic use ranges between JD450 and JD500, and the Kingdom’s annual expenditure on solar panels stands at around JD4.113 million. Let us put that into perspective, guess how much the country spends on tobacco producs each year? JD360 million, and ironically smoking-related diseases cost the country almost the same amount as stated by the Ministry of Health. Still, the news gets better. Solar experts in Jordan highlight that it takes less than three years to recover the cost of a domestic solar water heater. In other words, if you hopefully don’t die in the next three years, you would have purchased a solar water heating system and used it all free of charge for 1095 days, does it get any sweeter?
Today, Israel has the highest number of solar-power water heaters per capita in the world. By 1967 around one in twenty households heated its water with the sun and 50,000 solar heaters had been sold, I’m curious as to how many were sold in Jordan. With the 1970s oil crisis, Harry Zvi Tabor, the father of Israel’s solar industry, developed the prototype of the solar water heater now used in over 90% of Israeli homes. 4% of the country’s total energy demand is satisfied by solar panels for water-heating as estimated by the Israeli National Infrastructure Ministry, and solar water heating saves Israel two million barrels of oil a year. Need I say any more?
To sum it all up, I think Jordan has made a good effort to promote the solar industry by exempting energy-saving devices from sales tax and customs duties, and solar power is expected to account for 10 per cent of the country’s energy mix by 2020, not to mention the Shams Ma’an Solar Plant project which is said to become the largest solar power plant in the world upon completion. But even with that said, satisfaction is not in me, and I can hardly say my country has exerted enough to embrace solar energy and promote its technology and industry. What I want is to see this magnificent resource being abused.
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Disclaimer: This post has been partially re-blogged from the TEDxDeadSea blog where it was first published.
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