Amman- 7 March 2023
The President of the German Jordanian University (GJU), Prof. Ala’aldeen Al-Halhouli, inaugurated a project to install solar energy systems to generate electricity and improve energy efficiency in Industrial School- Madaba with the cooperation and partnership between the Ministry of Education and GJU, the support of the European Union in the presence of officials from the university, the Ministry and the European Union.
Al-Halhouli said that the installation of solar energy systems in Madaba came as part of the "Smart Energy Management Network in Mediterranean Schools" project funded by the European Union to find innovative and effective ways to promote the use of renewable energy and reduce the various impacts on the electricity grid.
Furthermore, Al-Halhouli indicated that the project addresses the issues of increasing demand for energy, dependence on fossil fuels, and the rise of carbon dioxide emissions in the Mediterranean region, in addition to involving local communities in the project's activities and benefiting directly from its outputs.
He added that as the project is close to the end of a four-year journey, the university has managed to train over 300 Students and 30 Teachers in 9 schools and 30 engineers from the MoE from across the country on Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (REEE) measures, intervene and install REEE pilots in 4 public schools, establish a national Energy hub that contributed to 5 case studies and strategies that will be shared with stakeholders, start a dialogue between the public and private sector on REEE Rehabilitation of public buildings.
In turn, the Director of Buildings at the Ministry of Education, Eng. Ibrahim Al-Samama’a said that the celebration came within the framework of cooperation between the Ministry, indicating that there are 680 government schools served by renewable energy as the royal directives to include schools with renewable energy systems.
He confirmed that the cooperation with GJU included the installation of solar energy systems to generate electricity and improve energy efficiency in two schools in the governorates of Madaba and Irbid with support from the European Union at a value of 180,000 euros, in addition to the installation of devices to monitor energy consumption in nine public schools at a value of 90,000 euros.
The school's energy systems include twenty-three high-efficiency air-conditioning units in all classrooms and administrative offices, fans in all classrooms to encourage best practices in energy use, maintenance of school windows, a 48-kilowatt photovoltaic system to cover the school's energy needs, and measures to maintain energy quality in an innovative way to support the national power grid.
It is noteworthy that the project is supervised by faculty members in the School of Natural Resources Engineering and its Management (SNREM), Dr. Osama Saadeh and Dr. Zakaria Dalala.