Amid the global oil crisis to irrigate farms, Yemeni farmers switch to water pumps powered by solar panels as an alternative to diesel.
How Solar Energy Revolutionized Yemen
As one of the most water-poor countries on earth, Yemenis are heavily dependent on groundwater. When people there were using diesel-powered pumps to get water out of the ground, fuel was expensive, so the pumps couldn’t be run for so long. This led to reductions in crops and played a part in the current famine.
The discovery of solar-powered water pumps transformed their lives. However solar-powered water pumps can keep running as long as the sun shines and, once set up, they’re almost free. This was better for agriculture, emissions and the environment, but far worse for groundwater levels.
During the global oil crisis to irrigate farms, Yemeni farmers switch to water pumps powered by solar panels as an alternative to diesel “As a sustainable alternative to traditional pumps, Yemeni farmers switch to water pumps powered by solar panels as the global energy crisis continues,’ quoted by Reuters.
The solar power revolution in Yemen has undoubtedly saved lives — it has, for example, powered hospitals and medical clinics. It has also transformed lives. Young Yemeni women have made international headlines for setting up solar micro-grids for their own communities, a UN study suggests that solar-powered schools have reduced pupils’ drop-out rates, and farmers have replaced polluting diesel generators with solar-powered pumps to irrigate crops.
According to the EADP, which focuses on access to clean and affordable energy, solar power went from being a niche product, used in just a few households in 2012, to the main source of energy for Yemeni households.
From 2016 onwards, its use has zoomed: “75% of the urban population and 50% of the rural population are estimated to receive solar energy,” EADP researchers concluded. That even included some communities that had never had electricity before.
A man checks solar panels installed to power his water pump in Sanaa, Yemen.
Experts say Yemen is one of the best-located countries in the world for solar power.
A recent report says Yemen’s solar power revolution could drain Yemen of water
However, recently, a report published this week by the Conflict and Environment Observatory in the UK has concluded that, while the lights may be on all over Yemen now, very soon there might be no water. And, they suspect, it is solar power that is to blame.
Water-tracking satellites discovered this when the organization, known as CEOBS, uses open-source information to monitor the impact conflict has on the environment. CEOBS researchers Leonie Nimmo and Eoghan Darbyshire actually started their work in Yemen in 2019, looking at agriculture and also at groundwater — that is, water trapped underground in soil and rocks, rather than rain or river water.
To remotely sense groundwater, CEOBS used a set of satellites called GRACE, short for the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, first launched by NASA in 2002. The satellites don’t take pictures of waterways, but rather measure the world’s water movements — things like melting ice caps and ocean levels — by measuring the earth’s gravity.
Whenever a mass shifts, it changes the earth’s gravity just a little. When there’s less groundwater, there’s also less mass. The GRACE satellites are affected by earth’s gravity while in orbit so when gravity changes, they move a little. The satellites register this movement and relay that back to scientists on earth, who convert the data to track changes in water.
Dangerously low water levels were discovered in the groundwater in western Yemen at their lowest level since satellite records started in 2002. It was only later that they concluded that the increased availability of solar power was probably playing a big part in those worryingly low levels.
Fear that groundwater may run out: They came to this conclusion because of several factors. Firstly, rainfall was above average yet groundwater was still going down. “That’s the opposite of what you might expect,” Darbyshire said.
Secondly, there had been huge growth in the use of solar panels in the country.
Thirdly, statistics from Yemen officials suggested that, in 2019, there was a large increase in local agriculture after a serious decrease due to the war. The assumption was that people were watering their crops more.
The increase in solar-powered pumping is “where all the evidence was pointing,” Nimmo told DW. Both researchers are certain of their findings. But they also say that to absolutely confirm their hypothesis, more research and more testing inside the country are needed, even if this is difficult because of the existing conflict. This is still a hypothesis and needs to be proved.
Yemen is a desert country in the Middle East on the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, bordered in the west by the Red Sea and the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, in the north by Saudi Arabia, and in the northeast by Oman. Yemen has maritime borders with Djibouti, Eritrea, and Somalia.