Palestinian and Jordanian officials on Monday inaugurated a project supplying the West Bank city of Jericho with Jordanian electricity.
According to the deal, the electricity will be transmitted from the Jordanian grid through the Sweimeh Electricity Power Plant in the Jordan Valley to Jericho.
Estimating the electricity capacity that will be supplied to city to be 20 megawatts, the Jordanian Ambassador to Palestinian Authority Yahiya Karalla said the project would reduce the price of electricity to Jericho residents by 20 percent.
The project was inaugurated following a P.A. request made during a meeting between Jordan’s King Abdullah II and P.A. Chairman Mahmoud ‘Abbas last year, Karalla told The Media Line.
Describing it as a historic moment, chief of the Palestinian power authority Omer Kanana said the project brought many political and economic benefits to Jericho.
“Now Jericho can stop receiving electricity from Israel… And this is part of an overall plan to supply the entire West Bank with Jordanian electricity,” he said.
The project, which began in mid-2007, included the building up of double air grids that will link the Jordanian Sweimeh plant to the Sea-Surface Electricity Plant in Jericho, the city governor, Arief Jabari explained.
Jabari added that the cost of the project on the Jordanian side was $75 million, which had been funded by the Saudi Islamic Bank, while the cost to the Palestinian side was $7.5 million, funded by the Norwegian government.
Jordan, which expanded the capacity of its Sweimeh plant by adding three 33-kilovolt cells, connected it directly to the current grids in Jericho, then to the sea-surface plant.
The project is part of a P.A. policy to depend on Arab electricity in the future, said P.A. negotiator ‘Saib Ariqat, adding: “Jericho has separated itself from Israeli electricity after 40 years and we are looking to the day to separate all the territories and make them depend on Arab electricity.”