A FRESH call encouraging homeowners and organisations to install solar panels has been issued.

It comes as Electricity and Water Affairs Minister Dr Abdulhussain Mirza met Bahraini Fuad Al Khayyat, who has applied for the installation of a solar energy system at his building that is under construction.

“The Sustainable Energy Unit (SEU) is encouraging institutions and individuals to use renewable energy in homes and facilities as well as commercial and industrial establishments,” said Dr Mirza in a statement.

“This encouragement looks to achieve major goals, including decreasing the consumption of energy, which is a national and environmental demand.

“It also contributes to part of the amount of monthly utility bills and enables users to sell electricity to the national grid through the net metering system.”

The GDN reported last month that a proposal to compulsorily install solar panels by 2020 on all new government homes and projects carried out by the private sector through the Housing Ministry has been presented by Bahrain’s three municipal councils and the Capital Trustees Board.

Under the scheme, homeowners will have to pay BD3,500 to install the panels, but this money can be recovered in the form of long-term energy savings.

The Electricity and Water Affairs Ministry has already introduced the technology at a government home in Jidhafs in April in co-ordination with the Housing Ministry.

Owners are able to reduce energy bills by producing their own solar power and then charge the Electricity and Water Authority (EWA) for excess energy pumped back into the grid.

Meanwhile, the EWA said that nearly 90 per cent of the 176,000 phone calls received by its call centre in the last four months were answered in less than 20 seconds.

The number of calls received in July alone reached 56,000, while 45,000 calls were made to the centre in June with the average response time for incoming calls being nine seconds.

This was in addition to 15,000 e-mails received by the centre in the same period.

According to the results of a survey conducted by the centre, 37pc of the communications was related to electricity emergency reports, 43pc was related to services, 15pc was about water emergencies, and 3pc was about road lighting issues.

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