Solar Panels, Irrigation, and Local Social Invention in Egypt

Ahmed Zahran grew up in Cairo, received a bachelor’s degree in finance from the American University in Cairo, and a masters from the University of London. While he never was exposed to renewable energy in his studies, he gained an interest in it early on, and wanted to work in the field. Because opportunities were nonexistent in Egypt, Zahran went work for Shell Oil Company and eventually landed in the company’s carbon emissions trading department. Here it soon became obvious to him that the only way to reduce emissions was to shift from fossil fuels to solar, and his work at Shell was not going to help much in achieving that goal. 

Zahran returned to Egypt and went to work for a solar energy company that unfortunately succumbed to the upheaval of the Arab Spring. This experience led Zahran to join with some friends in founding KarmSolar for the purpose of developing solar energy applications to serve the unique needs of Egyptians who live in desert landscapes. KarmSolar has gained global attention for its work on high capacity off-grid solar water pumps that recover underground water from very deep wells for agricultural uses. The essential premise of KarmSolar is to offer Egyptians the opportunity to live in off-grid desert communities and have access to essential unexploited groundwater resources available on the edges of the Nile Valley and desert oases. The idea is to pull population away from an overcrowded Nile and take advantage of the desert’s abundance of sun and soil. 

The standard approach for Nile Valley irrigation agriculture is to simply flood the fields periodically to supply water to plants. In reclaimed desert reliant on scarce groundwater, flooding is to wasteful. Movable sprinklers and drip irrigation systems offer a much more water efficient approach to growing crops. Sprinkler irrigation turns out not to be very effective for anything but low value fodder crops because of leaf salt-burn on broadleaf plants or problems with fungi forming because of water accumulation on leaf surfaces. Drip irrigation systems, with perforated plastic piping laid out in rows adjacent to vegetable or fruit plants, offer a highly efficient method of water and liquid fertilizer delivery to plant roots. In this sense, drip irrigation and hydroponic agriculture bear a similarity. Some drip irrigation farmers take advantage of a lucrative nearby European organic fruit and vegetable market by creating liquid organic fertilizer from animal manure onsite for delivery to plants through the irrigation system. One might think that the investment requirement rules out out all but big farms for drip irrigation, but already in desert landscapes hired workers learn the drip irrigation ropes and install inexpensive drip systems on their own nearby small plots. 

The big problem currently for agriculture on reclaimed Egyptian desert far away from an electrical grid is dependence on diesel powered generators that require difficult to deliver and expensive liquid fuels for their operation. The big advantage offered by the KarmSolar approach is an independent local source of electrical power that can run irrigation pumps and other kinds of equipment such as water purifiers and desalinators. The marriage of solar power and water efficient-irrigation makes feasible the creation of new communities in the desert wherever groundwater can be found. Not only does this opportunity allow KarmSolar to make money to sustain itself, but also opens up a chance for Egyptians to find a new ways of making a living without having to depend on an unreliable electrical grid or an incompetent central government. This is to the liking of social entrepreneurs such as KarmSolar’s Ahmed Zahran and Schaduf’s Sherif Hosny who express concerns about government incompetence. It’s fascinating to see entrepreneurial efforts with both a social and an environmental mission, such as Sekem, Schaduf, and KarmSolar, gaining a foothold in the context of government ineffectiveness, political upheaval, and a strongly traditional Muslim culture.