Pioneering solar energy project to save USD 500 million yearly

The Minister of Industry, Hussein Haj Hassan, the Minister of Energy and Water ‎Resources, Arthur Nazarian and the General Director of the Industrial Research ‎Institute (IRI), Bassam Faran, inaugurated last Tuesday the new integrated solar ‎power project at the IRI premises, as part of the European Union FOSTER in ‎MED program. The launched project, Faran explained, seeks to promote the ‎adoption of solar photovoltaic technologies in Mediterranean countries and has a ‎multi-phased strategic approach in partnership with the private sector. It ensures a ‎multiplier effect on the Mediterranean basin level, in terms of census results, ‎publishing and mainstreaming their benefits and expanding them beyond the ‎scope of partnership. Similarly, Nazarian disclosed in his intervention that the IRI ‎is currently completing the second phase of the solar power plant. The latter, he ‎pointed out, is a vital innovation aimed at realizing self-sufficiency in terms of ‎generating energy for individual use through exploiting the sustainable and ‎renewable energy modes. Also, Minister Haj Hassan underlined the efficacy of ‎dependence on water, air or solar energy to ensure a reduction of the consumption ‎bill expended by the government and by the productive, industrial, agricultural, ‎health and household sectors. “In a first reading of the results,” the minister said, ‎‎“and given the estimated annual state oil bill (USD 7 billion), if we achieved the ‎desired ratio of 12%, targeted by the government through the increasing reliance ‎on alternative energy, we could save around USD 500 million a year,” he added. ‎‎(Al Diyar, As Safir, Al Mustaqbal, June 8, 2016)‎