Gaza student finds new way to protect people from generator explosion

by Saud Abu Ramadan

GAZA, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- Abu Ouda, a student who studies accounting in a Gaza university, has invented a new way to operate electric generator via a cell phone.

Like other Gaza residents, Abu Ouda has a electric generator on the roof of his house. "The thing that propels me to invent this is that the generator might explode anytime and might hurt my family members," he said.

The new invention is about a cell phone that has an electronic panel, a chip and is linked to the electric generator, "once I dial via the cell phone, the generator would operate immediately," Abu Ouda said.

"If there is a power blackout, the generator could be operated only through the phone. But the generator could never be operated if there is electricity, so it's very safe."

"What make me think of such an invention are the fatal accidents caused by explosions of generators in Gaza," Abu Ouda said, adding "innocent people were killed due to the misuse of generators and the ongoing electricity crisis."

Power blackouts are usual in Gaza, where almost all houses have their own electric generators. Most of the small electric generators in the narrow, poor and densely populated coastal enclave were smuggled through tunnels under Egypt-Gaza borders. Misuse of these generators has caused several fatal incidents.

The electricity crisis has been going on since the Israeli army war jets destroyed the sole power plant in Gaza in June 2006, right after Hamas militants and two other minor armed groups kidnapped the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in a cross-border raid.

Six months after the Palestinians managed to fix the power plant with the help of the Egyptians, the crisis remained due to a lack of fuels to operate the power station. Israel minimized the amounts of fuels after it considered the Gaza Strip a hostile entity following Hamas controlled the enclave in 2007.

Following international pressure, Israel had then agreed to allow in Gaza only the needed amounts of industrial diesel for operating the station. However, the crisis remained and the population suffering mounted after financial disputes erupted between Hamas rulers and the Palestinian National Authority (PNA).

To overcome the crisis, Gaza company of electricity organized a time schedule of providing the residents with limited current due to the amounts of fuels it receives and the number of electric turbines it operates. People in the Gaza Strip get an average of 16-hour electricity for every full day.

Eight hours blackout is sometimes during the daylight and sometimes at night, where mostly every single house in the Gaza Strip has a small electric generator. According to Gaza rights groups figures, around 26 Palestinians were killed of electric generators explosions of suffocated by the smoke.

"I believe that it is the first ever experience in the Gaza Strip to operate an electric generator safely using a cell phone," Abu Ouda said, adding "it is good that this invention would minimize the number of victims."

Abu Ouda hoped that people would use his new invention "to avoid incidents." He also expressed his hope that the electricity crisis could be resolved soon.

"I know that my invention is temporary, it might not be useful when the electricity crisis is solved," Abu Ouda said.

Source: Xinhua.
Link: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/indepth/2010-11/22/c_13617546.htm.