Increased levels of fuel expected to enter Gaza over the next two days will nearly double the amount of electricity provided to the strip's residents, officials said Wednesday.
Around 900,000 liters of fuel will be be pumped into the Gaza Strip's power station over Wednesday and Thursday, the head of the Palestinian energy authority Omar Kittaneh said.
The fuel, paired with fuel entering through Egypt, will allow the station to increase productivity to 80 megawatts daily, meaning that Gazans will receive around 18 hours of electricity per day, Kittaneh added.
Kittaneh said the increase was possible after Egypt agreed to allow Qatari-funded fuel which has been held Egypt since 2012 to enter Gaza Strip.
In 2012, Egypt stopped pumping Qatari-funded fuel to the Gaza Strip after Egyptian authorities accused the Hamas movement of aiding attacks in the neighboring Sinai peninsula.
Qatar had funded 20 million liters of fuel in 2012 for Gaza. Around half of the fuel entered the strip while the remainder has been held Egypt's Suez Canal, Kittaneh said.
Tuesday it was announced that an estimated one million liters of Qatari-funded fuel will be used to run Gaza's sole power station for 45 days.
The expected 80 megawatts to be produced after Wednesday's and Thursday's shipments mark an increase from the 45 megawatts anticipated at the time of yesterday's announcement.
The Gaza Strip, which receives its electricity from Israel, Egypt, and its sole power plant, has been struggling to produce enough power for months.
Earlier this month, the power station reduced its provision of electricity to eight hours per day after it was unable to pay taxes imposed by the Palestinian Authority.
The power crisis has left small workshops and factories working far below their normal capacity.
On Monday, the speaker of the general federation of Gaza trade unions Samir al-Amsi said that if the electricity crisis continues, 90 percent of Gaza's factories, blacksmith workshops, aluminum workshops, and automobile repair workshops could shut down.
Egyptian authorities have promised to keep shipping the fuel to Gaza in an agreement reached between independent Palestinian officials, the Egyptian government and the Arab League to solve the power crisis in the Gaza Strip.
Earlier this year, the power plant closed down for more than a month in March when the Gazan energy authority was unable to cover taxes to the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority.
The amount was previously covered by Qatar, which in December donated $10 million to the PA to exempt the energy authority from paying the tax.
Although the power plant inside Gaza has a potential output of 120 MW, it has been unable to produce that much due to Israeli restrictions on fuel imports as part of an eight-year blockade.
Last summer the plant was targeted during the 50-day Israeli offensive on Gaza, completely knocking it out of commission. Gaza's energy authority said at the time that the damages from the attack could take up to a year to fix completely.
