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By Eliza Barclay
In Cuba, it is no longer uncommon to
pass a school or a doctor’s office in a remote
village that features one or two flat, square
contraptions on the roof, glittering and drinking
in the bright sun. The struggle to electrify rural
communities in the face of a weak economy and the
burgeoning price of petroleum has inspired
Cuba
to develop an unusual resolution of implementing
alternative energy sources. Solar energy channeled
through solar panels has evolved as an
exceptionally creative application of appropriate
technology in this country.
The Periodo Especial Forces Cuba
to Look Inwards
From 1990 – 1996,
Cuba
underwent what is now known as the periodo especial
or Special Period. GDP plummeted and imports of all
kinds tapered off following the end of the
Soviet Union and its
financial and trade support of
Cuba
. Beginning in the Special Period,
Cuba
’s ability to import oil from other countries was
hindered by soaring world prices, the country’s own
inability to produce goods to be traded, and
ironclad restrictions on engaging other countries
in trade.
Without a steady stream of
affordable foreign oil, not to mention the
prohibitive costs of developing its own substandard
oil resources,
Cuba
’s only option was to look inwards at other
opportunities for energy self-sufficiency. After
the creation of the National Energy Sources
Development Program in 1993, government officials
and members of
Cuba
’s scientific community began to mobilize to expand
domestic energy sources and commit to electrify
schools, hospitals, doctors’ offices and community
centers, especially in the poorest, most isolated
communities.
While the government was deciphering
its energy priorities, a group of environmental
scientists who had begun to pay heed to warnings
and who were beginning to gather information on the
specific risks that climate change poses to Cuba,
decided to collaborate around energy use.
CubaSolar, founded in 1994, is a non-governmental
organization formed and run by a team of
scientists, engineers, and planners who have been
fundamental in conceiving, developing and
implementing alternative sources of energy in
Cuba. CubaSolar collaborates with many other
agencies and non-governmental organizations to
disseminate information and provide training on
alternative energy technologies, principally solar.
Solar
Energy Out of Necessity
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Providing Cuba’s
mountainous regions with electrical power lines
is too costly |
The decision to employ photovoltaic
(PV) panels as the means for electrifying rural
areas did not evolve principally out of an
environmental consciousness. Because the cost of
implanting the wire, pylons and transformers of a
main distribution system to remote locations is so
high, energy technicians realized that installing
individual PV panels was far cheaper. Each PV
system used in a Cuban rural school costs
approximately $2,475. In comparison, the cost of
lengthening electrical power lines in the mountain
areas ranges from $7,000 to $12,500 per kilometer.
Aside from cost, advances in local
manufacturing capabilities have also made PV panels
an appropriate energy option. In 2001, the Pinar
del Río Electronic Components Complex began to
produce solar cells for photovoltaic panels,
adapting a technology that had been sponsored by
Spain
in the 1980s until the
U.S.
embargo drove the company into bankruptcy,
according to the head of the solar cell laboratory
at Electronic Materials and Reagents Institute
(IMRE). Eventually, after years of research
through the 1990s, Pinar del Río was finally able
to begin manufacturing high quality, silicone cells
comprising roughly 70% of the panels. The
remaining 30% of panel material is imported from
Europe .
Cuba
now saves 10% of what it would spend on imported
panels by buying the components it does not
manufacture and assembling the panels at home.
Today, over 2,364 schools, 350
doctors’ offices, and hundreds of hospitals draw
their power from silicone-based solar panels.
According to Bruno Henríquez of Cubaenergia, “There
is currently a plan to electrify 100,000 more rural
households at a rate of 20,000 per year.”
Amazing Progress
Laurie Stone of Solar Energy
International (SEI), a non-profit based
organization in
Carbondale ,
Colorado
, was a member of the first American research
mission in 1996 to
Cuba
to learn about renewable energy development. She
has been back nearly every year since then, and led
a trip of Americans in May 2003 to visit renewable
energy projects. Stone says, “The public outreach
campaigns have been incredibly successful. Today,
you can ask any Cuban on the street and they will
know about the solar panels on the schools around
the country.”
CubaSolar and numerous other
government and non-government agencies will be
working to increase these numbers and continue to
research and implement other types of alternative
energy sources like biomass, wind, and
micro-hydro.
The Center for Appropriate
Technology (CITA) was originally founded in 1995 to
conduct research on improving inexpensive water and
sanitation technologies to meet the needs of poorer
Cubans in rural areas. CITA is currently working to
develop prototypes for several technologies
including a variety of water pumps, windmills, and
water filters. One of the pumps CITA is working on
is solar-powered and is designed to be energy
efficient.
These kinds of technologies, in
addition to further proliferation of PV panels,
will maintain
Cuba
’s impressive trajectory of sustainable
development. While the country has not yet been
able to achieve large-scale energy production from
renewable energy, solar panels have been highly
beneficial for rural Cubans. As the country’s
economy picks up and more opportunities for trade
and production arise, government officials and
citizens alike will need to reconcile the tradeoffs
of adopting larger scale and potentially more
environmentally destructive technologies.
Sources:
Brown, Simon. “El
Centro Integrado de Technologia Appropiada (CITA).”
“One Step Closer to the Sun.” Granma
International,
September
5, 2001.
Stone, Laurie. “The Sol Of
Cuba
.” Home Power, 1996, Vol. 55.
Technologias Apropiadas Para El
Abasto de Aqua y El Saneamiento.
(http://www.islamonline.net)
31/07/2003
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