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Rabat – The people of Tadmamet, a small village south of Marrakesh, built last year a mosque with solar panels on the roof and LED lamps inside.
The small village with approximately 400 inhabitants became home to the first solar-powered mosque in the country, built from scratch, mostly by local residents.
With photovoltaic solar panels that cover the roof, the mosque produces enough energy to power itself, the house of the imam next door, and also a significant number of houses in the village.
“It’s the first positive energy mosque in the country,” says Jan-Christoph Kuntze of the German Corporation for International Cooperation (GIZ), a German government agency that provided support for the project.
The green mosque provides many services in addition to its primary role as a place of worship, serving as a teaching and learning space as well as being equipped with heated showers.
“Private households don’t have hot water,” Kuntze told the BBC. “Now, people from the village can take a hot shower in the washing room next to the mosque.”
According to Omar Benaicha, head of the mosque’s construction, 70 percent of the building work was carried out voluntarily by the people of the village.
“During its construction, we managed to train people, to develop their capabilities and maybe to be self-employed in the future,” Benaicha said. “This is why, for us, it is a special mosque.”
