Palestinian student invents solar panel cleaning robot

A Palestinian student studying at the occupied West Bank’s Birzeit University has invented a robot which cleans solar panels, the Safa news agency reported yesterday.

In spite of having been arrested by the Israeli occupation forces three times during his degree, Abdullatif Al-Barghouti completed his final project with a vision to help solve the electricity crisis in the Gaza Strip.

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Solar panels lose out on efficiency as they become dusty, so Al-Barghouti designed and produced a robot which operates independently to clean the panels regardless to how much dust there is.

The student from the department of mechanics and mechatronics engineering said production took eight months, including the time it took to research and develop the robot.

He now hopes to transfer the idea to help his “brothers” in the Gaza Strip which is suffering from a shortage of electricity with power cuts lasting eight or more hours each day.