The sun lights up the nights of Ardeh

 

The municipality of Ardeh inaugurated on Friday 21st October its new solar photovoltaic  street lights system. 6 main areas around the towns of Ardeh, HarfArdeh, Beit Awkar and Beit Obeid have since Friday a new efficient and greener public lighting system. This new infrastructure, funded by the European Union, was inaugurated by Cyril Dewaleyne as representative of the European Union Delegation in Lebanon. The Lebanese Center for Energy Conservation (LCEC) was represented by Mr. Ziad El Zein and was accompanied by the Ministry of Interior delegate, Roxana Moukarzel. The mayors of the four municipalities participating in the SUDEP South Project in Lebanon (Ardeh, Baakline,Halba and Koura) were as well present at the inauguration ceremony and took the opportunity to exchange best practices with experts, stakeholders and beneficiaries.

As a closure of the evening, those present –over a hundred- could witness the achievements in terms of energy production from solar source. A representation of the more than 300 households that are benefiting from this technology, expressed their full satisfaction in terms of quality energy services provided by solar equipment.

Energy gap is a crucial issue for Lebanon, with an excessive demand in comparison with a very limited capacity of energy production. This gap reaches a peak difference of 800 MW between the production and the demand, and can only be reduced by using new energy efficiency systems and renewable energies such as solar energy for electricity and for heating water. As an evidence of this, Ardeh and its neighbouring municipalities participating in the SUDEP South projet, use more than a 20 % of the annual budget on street lighting. Ardeh, Harf, Beit Awkar and Beit Obeid are currently facing big challenges such as growing population, poor infrastructure or inefficacity’s that can be tackled with the new capacities provided with the support of the SUDEP South project.

The European Union, together with the Rene Moawad Foundation (RMF), is funding the SUDEP South Ardeh project that aims at providing the local authorities with financial and technical capabilities to improve the sustainable growth in the mentioned municipalities. In the framework of the SUDEP South, a total of four projects are funded in Lebanon in the municipalities of Ardeh, Baakline,Halba and Koura.

Capacity building for local and national stakeholders

25 participants –representing local authorities and national stakeholders- have been trained by four international experts on the two set of trainings organized by the SUDEP South Support Mechanism project. During two days, trainees receive a capacitation on Energy Management Systems, Public Procurement, Monitoring & Evaluation and Measurement & Verification. Training certificates were distributed to trainees as part of a ceremony that was co-presided by Cyril Dewaleyne, representative of the EU Delegation in Lebanon and  Mr. Ziad El Zein as representative of the LCEC.