Diaa Abdullah, a 31-year-old engineer, stands near a wind turbine and solar panels on the rooftop of his house in Sweida province, southern Syria, on Nov. 2, 2020. (Photo by Ammar Safarjalani/Xinhua)
by Hummam Sheikh Ali
SWEIDA, Syria, Nov. 16 (Xinhua) -- In a remote village in Syria's southern Sweida province, a small home stands out with a white mini wind turbine spinning tirelessly on its rooftop.
On the roof, Diaa Abdullah, a 31-year-old engineer, stands near the turbine checking its cables.
He manufactured the turbine and installed it all by himself on the rooftop of his house to generate electricity enough to turn on the lights and operate small electrical equipment, the mechanical engineer told Xinhua.
The main motive behind such a project was the lack of electricity in the winter and the need to find alternative sources of energy.
In Abdullah's mind, the future is for renewable energy and he should first make his house benefit from such energy in the village, where the wind is strong, particularly in the winter.
Starting several months ago, the man applied his related knowledge at the university and read studies online to benefit from the latest in this field of knowledge to set up his turbine.
Abdullah created a hybrid energy system that comprises a vertical axis turbine and a few solar panels to take advantage of both the wind in the winter and the sun in the summer.
"I believe that this project has been created from the needs of this village and in the next years, I think more people will adopt the renewable energy as a result of the situation in Syria in terms of the economic siege and the lack of fuel and energy," he said.
However, for Abdullah, the economic situation is an obstacle in the face of achieving his dream of having a factory to manufacture wind turbines.
The man has a day job at a government electricity institution. He spends a long time on the way back home in the village every day after work.
To reach the rooftop, Abdullah uses a broken chair to climb over a space between the stone ladder and the rooftop.
Abdullah said that he created the project on his computer and went to factories asking for cutting aluminum axis for his turbine, which can generate electricity even if the wind was as slow as four meters per second.
The young man still dreams that one day, he will have what it takes to create wind turbines on a wider scale, demanding support from the government for such projects.
"I need an establishment to manufacture the wind turbines and get official permissions from the government, which should support such projects to achieve large production of wind turbines at cheap prices so that everybody can install it," he remarked.
Abdullah is now advertising his project on social media and he is still doing experiments to develop it, which attracted the attention of his neighbors and some companies.
"I will continue to develop my skills and study renewable energy because it's the future and the solution for our problems," Abdullah said, adding that he is receiving orders from companies to install similar systems to generate electricity. Enditem
