abstract

The energy sector situation in Palestine is highly different compared to other countries in the Middle East
due to many reasons: non-availability of natural resources, unstable political conditions, financial crisis
and high density population. Furthermore, Palestine depends on other countries for 100% of its fossil fuel
imports and for 87% of its electricity imports. In addition high growth of population, increasing living
standards and rapid growth of industrial have led to tremendous energy demand in Palestine in recent
years. The total energy consumption per habitant in Palestine is the lowest in the region (0.79 MW h/
inhabitant) and costs more than anywhere else in the Middle East countries. The primary goal of this
paper is to analyze the current energy sector situation in Palestine and to highlight the status of the
potential of renewable energy as an essential future energy source sector in Palestine. Regarding the
main possibilities of RE, the wind speed averages (m/s) for main 5 cities were: Tubas 4.97, Salfeet 4.26,
Ramallah 3.09, Hebron 2.90 and Jericho 1.32. With these data, Palestine can be considered as a country of
moderate wind speeds. By the other hand, Palestine has a high solar energy potential about 3000 sunshine
hours per year with a solar radiation (kW h/m
2
/day) for year 2013 of 8.27 in Ramallah, 7.51 in
Hebron, 6.86 in Salfeet and 6.15 in Tubas. These values are encouraging to exploit the solar energy for
different applications. This study highlights that the main renewable energy sources in Palestine are solar
energy, wind energy and biomass, thereby the energy dependence on neighbouring countries may
significantly decrease, when Palestine uses the available renewable energy sources. The renewable energies
in Palestine open new perspectives for energy sector in order to prompt practices for sustainable
development.