Our Mission | Our Vision | What We Have | Our Future

What We Have

The Wadi farm is approximately 1,400 acres and contains 160,000 olive trees. The farm has its own processing facilities for sorting and packing table olives and for making olive paste and a state of the art factory for producing olive oil. The farm also has over 60,000 chickens and is a leader in chick production for the Arab World. Around our center are a few hundred date palm trees, a fruit garden, a vegetable garden, an herb garden and a small botanical gardens. We have an endangered Egyptian tortoise rescue and breeding facility and animal enclosures containing tortoises, rabbits, hedgehogs, lizards, snakes and insects for demonstrating integrated wildlife ecology.

As of this writing we have one operational wind turbine, a 400 Watt Windstream Air403 on an 18 meter pole. We have a 1.2 KW photovoltaic solar panel array (2 Siemens 75 W panels, 4 Astropower 75 W panels and 8 Photowatt 100 W panels) mounted on the roof of our solar powered performance stage, and two BP Solarex 30 W panels mounted with a voltmeter and ammeter on our trackable "solar tree". The wind turbine and 75 W panels are wired to two series-connected 6 V deep-cycle batteries through a Morningstar 30 Amp Charge controller and a 500W 12V-220V Modified Sine-Wave (MSW) Inverter. The 8 Photowatt-100 panels are wired internally as 24 V modules and are connected through a Trace 40 Amp Charge Controller to four series/parallel connected 12 V deep-cycle batteries and a 1200 W 24V-200V MSW Inverter.

One of our 75 W and one of our 100 W solar modules were severely damaged in shipping. They are still putting out 25% and 50% of rated power respectively, but will corrode soon from moisture entering the cracked glass and need to be replaced (your donations can help!).

Our solar and wind powered performance stage, designed to enhance the desert farm environment by award winning Japanese architect Risa Kato with assistance from Belgian architecture intern Barbara Campens (University of Gent), is lit with 15 colorful 26V compact-fluorescent lamps, drawing 390 Watts from our 500 W inverter. Sound is provided by a 12 Volt DC Amplifier and a 24 Volt DC Amplifier powering two 150 Watt Montarbo speakers and 4 monitors that amplify our three Sure microphones and one Nady Wireless microphone and our bass guitar. For high quality sound mixing and effects we also have a conventional AC powered four channel Leem mixer with two 150 Watt Leem speakers that we run off of the 24V-220V inverter. For guitars and keyboards we have a Leem bass amp that has been rewired to run off of two small 7 Amp-Hour 12V sealed batteries and a Roland battery powered Mini Cube. This allows us to put on musical concerts and presentations completely "off-the-grid". Next to the solar stage are two mirror-covered satellite dishes used to demonstrate solar thermal energy. These "parabolic reflectors" will soon be producing electricity through the use of a solar powered steam engine! A nearby solar distiller demonstrates water purification.

Our school contains five buildings, with compact fluorescent lighting, also designed to complement the environment by Risa Kato: an activity center with data-show projection capabilities, a kitchen and dining hall with solar hot water (from three roof mounted collectors built from scratch by the Wadi engineers) and composting facilities, a sustainable development library and office with internet computer facilities, a storage room for laboratory and activity equipment, and male and female bathrooms. Next to the bathrooms is a Bedouin tent for overnight camping and a washing faucet area, also heated by two demonstration solar energy collectors. Adjacent to this is a re-circulating fountain for water activities. Sandboxes and benches on the lawn and five stone activity tables amidst the olive trees provide a "classroom without walls" for quality learning experiences in an open air environment.