Dubai: Dubai Municipality hopes to save up to Dh400,000 in electricity bills every year by switching to solar power for its 80 public toilets, XPRESS has learnt.
"Every single public toilet unit generates about Dh5,000 in electricity bills per year," said Juma Khalifa Al Fuqaie, Director of the municipality's General Maintenance Department and its point man in the solar-powered toilet project. A contract has been awarded to a solar power system integrator to install a unit, Al Fuqaie said, adding, "We will put together six solar panels that will produce up to 100 watts of electricity. This will be enough to run fluorescent lamps, exhaust fans and a small water pump."
Each set will cost between Dh60,000 and Dh80,000, he added.
The demonstration unit will be installed in a public toilet near the Clock Tower, next to Dnata headquarters. If the system proves its worth, he said, the rest of the public toilets under Dubai Municipality may switch to solar.
Asked why the municipality plans on using solar power, Al Fuqaie said: "We pay for every watt to keep our public toilets running. Nothing comes for free, except the sunshine, which is abundant here." He added that plans are on to use solar power to heat public pools and the water used in government slaughterhouses to start saving money after two years.
In February this year, the municipality replaced over 400 water-flushed urinals in its public parks with water-free ones, saving over 52 million litres of water annually. Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa) has also introduced solar-powered parking lights in its headquarters and in several of its satellite offices, though a senior official said last year that large-scale solar energy is unlikely to play a key role to boost power generation.
