By Charlie Dunmore for UNHCR

AZRAQ REFUGEE CAMP, Jordan – Thousands of Syrian families will light up their homes, charge their phones and chill their food by solar power tonight, as Jordan’s Azraq camp becomes the first refugee camp in the world to be powered by renewable energy.

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, switched on Azraq’s new two-megawatt solar photovoltaic plant on Wednesday. It will provide clean energy free of charge to some 20,000 Syrian refugees living in shelters that have been linked up to the electricity grid since January. The grid is due to be expanded to all 36,000 refugees currently residing in the camp by early next year.

The plant was built at a cost of 8.75 million euros (US$9.6m), funded entirely by the IKEA Foundation’s “Brighter Lives for Refugees” campaign. It will result in immediate energy savings of US$1.5m a year – which UNHCR will be able to reinvest in other much-needed assistance – as well as annual CO2 emissions savings of 2,370 tons.

Photo: Azraq refugee camp’s solar farm stretches out into the desert, Adeeb al Bassar, Jordan | Photo Credit: © IKEA Foundation/Vingaland AB