Keeling Curve

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The solar program was developed and launched on March 2, 2014 to help Yemenis harness the abundant solar power available in Yemen. The fundamental problems with solar energy acceptance in Yemen was 1) high cost of components, 2) lack of knowledge and 3) bad experience with attempts to use solar. ITDC determined that 2 of these 3 problems could be addressed with a course that taught design, installation and maintenance of small scale solar PV systems (100W-500W). Rather than try to adapt a curriculum to the Yemen context, the course was designed from the outset to fit into Yemeni culture and local learning styles (minimal text, high graphical presentation, hands on experience). Given routinely poor standards of wiring and installation, the course requires participants to design and build working, battery based AC and DC solar PV systems during the course. The course included awareness of alternative energy opportunities in Yemen and an introductory exposure to small wind power. ITDC trained 46 graduates during the first year of the program, but thanks to the continued expansion, 1,023 Yemenis graduated from the program in 2021. The course is delivered onsite in villages to remove the traditional barrier of Yemeni technical education, which is constrained to urban locations (although 70% of Yemen's population lives in a village area). The course has continued to evolve over time and now includes solar thermal cooking using low tech re-purposed satellite dishes and conducts solar water pumping retrofit installations for village wells.

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ITDC Solar program is unique within Yemen and its traditional culture because it has successfully promoted not only youth (18-26 years old), but even more significantly Yemeni women as solar technicians. Between 1970-2014, ITDC had only 4 females participants in its long running electronics course. However since the start of the solar program in 2014, ITDC has trained 1,335 Yemeni women as PV solar technicians. Two of the ITDC solar training staff are females giving the unique opportunity to run solar courses in which all of the facilitators and participants are female. The average ITDC solar class is 30-40% female, especially in the village areas. 

In a highly traditional culture, it can be difficult to include women, but the ongoing war has left many villages empty of men, so the women have had to step in to fulfill traditionally male roles. The story of Suad (2017 female graduate in Taiz city) represents many of their experience, I did not know anything about solar systems before the course. I did not know even the simplest things, but after I studied, I learned many things that could help me fix and correct what is wrong in the system at my house. I even decided to hold some sessions to teach all the women in the village how to use and fix solar systems, with help of some of my classmates. We are preparing for the classes and trying to collect as many materials as possible. Because we are girls and cannot work in the fields in their village, we are determined to convey everything we learned to the other who did not have that chance. We found big welcome from the other women who wanted to study and they seem very excited to learn. 

Since ITDC began including solar thermal cooking alongside humanitarian food distributions, ITDC has also been able to assist Internally Displaced People (IDPs) and Muhamasheen people (marginalized African people group in Yemen). These groups are often the most vulnerable and therefore are targeted to receive food security assistance. By pairing, solar cookers with food aid, economically destitute people receive not only food, but a free and environmentally friendly means of cooking it.

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