Syria plans PV workshop

Syria is planning a workshop on rural electrification that will focus mainly on PV.

© PV Lab/SSRC-Syria PV pure: A 10 kW PV station for pumping and desalinating brackish water via reverse osmosis in the village of Kalif.

Riyadh Sabouni of PV Lab, the government's solar agency in Damascus, says the workshop will take place sometime in late 2002, although an exact date has not been set. Sabouni expects members of Syrian government ministries - electricity, agriculture, irrigation, housing - to attend, as well as speakers on renewable energy from abroad.

Syria began to introduce PV in 1995 when the Japanese government funded a $10 million project through the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). Finished last year, the project centered on Zarzita, now known in Syria as the Solar Village. It includes a 36 kW centralized PV system, 17.5 kW of solar home systems (SHS) on 53 houses, and a 5 kW PV pump for drinking water. Two more desalination pump units equal to another 10 kW were installed in Kalif in 1998. A 1997 United Nations Development Program (UNDP) project supported by JICA, which ends this year, helped to set up the government's PV Lab. In 1996, the Indian PV cell and module manufacturer Central Electronics Ltd. (CEL) built a factory with a 100 kW annual production capacity for the Syrian government, where PV Lab produces modules using CEL cells and charge controllers. Other PV Lab projects include designing and assembling PV systems for navigational aids on the Syrian coast, and modules for earthquake monitoring stations. In all, Sabouni estimates that Syria has 80 kW of installed PV capacity.

Sabouni says PV Lab and the UNDP office in Damascus are pushing for a new PV program involving SHS, pumps, and possibly a mini-grid for rural electrification. So far, he says, nothing has materialized.

Riyadh Sabouni
rsabouni@scs-net.org
 

William P. Hirshman
© PHOTON International, July 2002