Environmental research

There are 10,000 wheel chairs in the Gaza strip (Gs). Each functioning motorized wheel chair produce 0.5 Kilogram per day, and 183 kgm CO2 per year .If all of these wheel chairs functioned by solar energy in the future, 1830 Ton CO2 will be reduced in the future. That means 2.5 Megawatt will be saved from the grid connection. The electricity grid is traditionally used to charge the batteries of the wheel chairs with electric motors. And as access to fuel for the Gaza power plant is limited, as the power plant needs to generate electricity for n households and as the number of hours of sunshine is relatively high in GS, the adoption of PV panels for re-charging the battery packs of these wheelchairs is a logical step to take.Hence, this pilot project aims at reducing CO2 emission by 3843 kg per year from 21 functioning wheel chairs the batteries of which would otherwise have been charged via the common electricity grid. In addition to that, this project will help the Persons with Disabilites to increase their mobility. Themaximum distance a wheel chair can move after the traditional way of charging is 6kilometers. By switching to solar energy driven wheelchairs, there will be no more need to stopover for charging. Yet another component of this project consists in rasing community awareness on the importance of finding alternative resources to cover the energy demand though renewable energy in general and photovoltaic systems in particular.

Palestine