Pioneering Bedouin school models sustainable, solar-powered living

First-of-its-kind project, which engages pupils in tech research, stars at confab on solar energy for Bedouin, where planners also announce green light for three new solar fields

Sue Surkes is The Times of Israel's environment reporter

The off-grid technology hub at the Alfoura School in southern Israel. (Courtesy)
The off-grid technology hub at the Alfoura School in southern Israel. (Courtesy)

A Bedouin school in an unrecognized village in southern Israel is pioneering what is thought to be the first model of its kind for living sustainably without any connection to state electricity, water, or sewage infrastructure, just by harnessing the power of the sun.

It is a pilot technological project that, according to Fareed Mahameed of the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, could help over 70 percent of the world’s population cope with the effects of climate change.

Its completion was announced Tuesday at the second annual conference of the Jewish-Bedouin NGO Shamsuna, held in the Bedouin town of Rahat.

The tech site is located in the unrecognized village of Alfoura, close to the Beersheba-Arad highway.

Set up by the Arava Institute, in partnership with Shamsuna, the Atid educational network, and the ICA in Israel-Jewish Charitable Association, the site includes a greenhouse and comprises five off-grid facilities: an odorless, solar-driven and scalable plug-and-play unit using bacteria and algae to recycle wastewater for use in crop irrigation; agro-voltaic solar panels that help crops to grow while also producing solar energy; batteries to store that energy for hours when there is no sunshine; a unit developed by the Israeli HomeBiogas company that converts organic waste into methane gas for cooking and fertilizer; and Israeli Watergen machines, which provide clean drinking water from the air.

The hub serves four classrooms, “the only classes in Israel that can switch between the electricity grid and off-grid solar,” said Mahameed. Pupils can access detailed solar energy data through an application on their phones for research purposes and are studying the pros and cons of irrigation with regular and recycled water.

The hub enables students to grow plants using recycled wastewater and the fertilizer generated by the organic waste, and to cook what they grow on a stove powered by methane gas, the other byproduct of organic waste recycling. There is also clean drinking water and electricity is always available, even when there’s no sun.

In this undated picture, two students at the Alfoura School hub in southern Israel measure the height of plants as part of an irrigation research project. (Shada Mahameed)

Government policy is to settle the Bedouin into specially built towns or recognized communities. The former were built with electricity, water, sewage treatment and trash collection infrastructure. Only some recognized villages have had such services installed.

Unrecognized villages were built without permission or predate the 1965 Planning and Construction Law. Alfoura residents say their village predates the state.

According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, 71% of the roughly 300,000 Bedouins in Israel, most living in the south, dwelled in planned or recognized communities as of 2023.

A self-assembled solar power system, not connected to the national electricity grid, seen in the Bedouin village of Naqab, southern Israel, September 8, 2013. (Dudu Greenspan/FLASH90)

Residents who claim land rights in villages like Alfoura and refuse to move are regarded as living on state land illegally and are denied most infrastructure services, although water is available for several hours each day. Most residents dig pits to collect sewage and use solar panels unconnected to the grid for lighting. The law prohibits solar panels on roofs of buildings that were not constructed with planning permission, but permission is not granted at any rate in unrecognized villages.

At the same time, because every child has a right to education under the law, the Education Ministry does recognize schools in such communities, pays teachers’ salaries and often funds the school buildings themselves.

Alfoura’s school has access to electricity, albeit in inadequate amounts, due to an anomaly connected to a building permit awarded in 1974 to the first building erected there.

A miniature Bedouin tent for children backs onto a tin shack (accessible by an open gate) that houses a diesel-fired generator at the Elrara kindergarten complex in the Negev, southern Israel, February 18, 2024. (Sue Surkes/Times of Israel)

Because it cannot authorize solar panels, the Education Ministry transfers money to local councils to rent and operate diesel generators, which are noisy, unreliable, and emit carcinogenic fumes, according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer.

Earlier this year, the environmental advocacy organization Adam Teva V’Din led several other NGOs and parents in a High Court petition demanding that the state replace the generators.

Thanks to Shamsuna and donations from businessman and green energy entrepreneur Yoki Gil, generators have been replaced with private funds in a four-kindergarten complex in Elarara, and one with two kindergartens in Umm Batin.

The playground at the Elarara kindergarten complex in the Negev, southern Israel, February 18, 2024. (Sue Surkes/Times of Israel)

Shamsuna is co-chaired by solar energy pioneer Yossi Abramowitz and Bedouin solar activist Raid Abu-Alkian, and is run jointly by a Jewish man, Gil Yasur, and a Bedouin woman, Amal Abu-Alkhom.

At Tuesday’s conference, Dorit Hochner, who heads physical planning in the Energy Ministry, revealed that just a week ago, her office kicked off a process she estimated would take six months to allow the exchange of generators for solar panels in several locations.

Shamsuna is still pressing for the inclusion of a clause in a government decision on the Bedouin passed in March 2022 that would oblige the Energy Ministry to examine exempting all relevant educational institutions and other public service buildings from the need for building permits for off-grid facilities such as solar panels.

Michael Macchia, an expert in energy and renewables from the law firm Agmon and Tulchinsky, said, “The solutions exist, and the state knows how to use them.”

Referring to the erection of panels on roofs of buildings lacking the necessary permits, he said, “We’ve already done this in kibbutzim, and in buildings constructed illegally in ultra-Othodox Jewish neighborhoods and by Palestinians in East Jerusalem.

“You just need to get the right authorities to create the ecosystem that will allow implementation of the vision.”

The solar field at Abu Krinat, on the al-Anami family’s land. (Courtesy, Shamsuna)

Long-running battles with authorities over land ownership have also hampered the establishment of solar fields in Bedouin communities. Two are already functioning in the villages of Tarabin and Abu Krinat, where families have reached agreements with the state.

Hochman said her office had identified around 233,000 dunams (58,000 acres) of land in Bedouin areas that could be used for photovoltaic solar fields, if ownership and other issues could be resolved.

Iris Berkowitz of the Southern Region Planning Authority revealed that three more solar fields had been approved on Bedouin land.

She noted that countrywide, 64,000 dunams (16,000 acres) had been approved for solar fields, 90% of which were in the southern district (the figures do not include panels on existing infrastructure such as roofs).

However, much of this energy will have to wait until the electricity authorities build new infrastructure to make room on the grid. Furthermore, she added, competition for Negev land was growing as the population increased.

Any new solar fields in Bedouin villages will primarily benefit the families who have negotiated with the authorities on using their land.

Michael Macchia said that for solar energy to take off in the Bedouin community, it was essential to get the residents on board, map the land where disputes have been solved and panels can be installed immediately, and get the relevant authorities involved.

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