He has recently accepted the offer made by Shamsina, a startup social enterprise, to have a locally manufactured solar water heater installed on his rooftop. Makhlouf’s household has fulfilled all eligibility conditions set by Shamsina - Arabic for “Our Sun” - to receive a subsidized solar water heater. We target higher end consumers, businesses, hotels for example that can afford our solar water heater and we use proceeds from these consumers in order to fund solar water heaters for our lower-income households,” says Mousa. Shamsina, which is incubated at Harvard Innovation Labs, has so far developed five different iterations of its thermal solar water heater. With local R&D and local components, the company offers consumers a more affordable solar water heater, the price of which is almost half that of the imported one.

Source: The North Africa Journal August 13, 2023 10:25 UTC