Sustainable Wind-energy Implementation Through Community Hosting (SWITCH!)
In the time that it takes to read this sentence, another 41 more people will be born - 17 of them will spend their lives without access to the electricity.
Many countries in the world are experiencing an energy crisis. Residents either, receive an inconsistent supply of power from the national electricity grid, or continue to burn fuels and
candles for lighting. Fuels are expensive for remote villagers, provide poor lighting, and produce indoor air pollution.
Across much of the developing world, dinner comes served with a loaf of smoke. Many of the 2 billion that live without electricity continue to cook with wood, dung and charcoal. Burning these solid fuels sends CO2 into the atmosphere; aggravating global warming; not properly sourced bio-fuels cause deforestation; threatening rainforests; and, the indoor air pollution produced, causes fatal respiratory diseases.
Clean energy has the power to combat climate change and boost sustainable development worldwide. To develop renewable energy projects, The Dome will provide remote communities
with financial fund, technical assistance, and training to set up and operate clean energy businesses in Africa, Asia and Latin America. These businesses in turn will light poor households, preserve natural resources and expand income.
With SWITCH!, The Dome will offer full implementation of the wind-energy solution through actively involving the communities we reach in: the design, construction, maintenance and commissioning process; thus, turning them into the 'hosts' of the received power system.
SWITCH! turn wind power into sustainable development in the form of: education, health, employment, women empowerment, training, young entrepreneurship, and social capital building.
SWITCH! evaluate potential wind development sites and use technology to bring clean power to the people.
SWITCH! boost local economy and create employment by manufacturing wind turbines and other key components locally near their point of usage.
SWITCH! build capabilities on the community for the safe operation and maintenance of the system in the long term.
SWITCH! empower local entrepreneurs to create a cleaner, healthier and more prosperous planet whilst generating financial returns on investment.
SWITCH! implies the necessity for change and different thinking, switching the ways we operate.
SWITCH! is a local solution to a set of global issues only achievable thanks to Intel’s technology.
SWITCH! – 3 Steps Model
The Dome uses wind power to bring sustainable development to remote communities through a 3-steps model that combines technical assistance, social capital building and academic programs.
In the technical aspect; The Dome had the idea for this project, essentially by bringing together wind monitoring towers and Remote Area Power Supply (RAPS) systems.
Small scale hybrid power systems are a mature technology that is powering tens of thousand of homes, communication facilities, schools, clinics and remote facilities in virtually every country.
Data collected from the monitoring towers will be published and large-scale wind farm developers tendered to exploit the wind power available in the region.
By combining two complimentary applications – wind monitoring and power supply – The Dome will deliver to the communities a cost effective energy solution.
In order to predict the system performance, individual components need to be modeled first.
The Dome provides sustainable wind implementations that transform wind energy into electricity and then into investments returns, simultaneously creating successful small business for local women to own, operate and use profits for their own development agenda. Training and Social Capital building are basic to perform this transformation.
WEEP! – Wind Energy-Utilization Program
Wind implementations are expected to become fully sustainable in 2-years time. To support this objective The Dome will develop the academic program WEEP!
The Dome will deliver WEEP! courses to relevant members of the community to ensure that a pool of well-trained staff members are equipped with the correct skills not only to perform the maintenance and oversee the operation of the wind systems, but also to explore, develop and install further wind implementations within the region.
SWITCH! – Supporting Young Entrepreneurs
By choosing wind energy, villagers save an average of US $150 US per year – money previously spent on diesel, candles and batteries. In return to their supply of clean energy - people will pay a voluntary amount from US $2.50 to $50.00 a month, to support locally generated clean energy.
The program is designed to financially support small electricity business within the region. Once a year, producers will be paid a percentage of the collected pool based on their percentage of the total renewable energy generated by all the producers together.
It is crucial to work with rural young people in order to increase local potential, enhance innovation and diversify rural income options. Young entrepreneurs might become important leaders within their communities, helping to achieve further development goals.
SWITCH! – Renewable Energy Technology
Remote Area Power Supply (RAPS) systems had become a very suitable and appropriate power generation approach for remote communities. Traditional large scale electrification schemes will not be able to address the urgent needs of those people for basic energy services such as light, due to their shear project size, costs and dependence on external technical and financial support.
What is required is a much more modest approach, which would bring sustainable, affordable and teachable technologies into the homes of the community.
Solar energy and Wind energy are the two most viable renewable energy resources. A drawback, common to wind and solar options, is their unpredictable nature and dependence on weather and climatic changes. Fortunately, the problems can be partially overcome by integrating the two resources into a hybrid solar–wind system employing battery banks.
The proposed hybrid power generation system consists of photovoltaic (PV) array, wind turbine, battery bank, inverter, controller; and other accessories, devices and cables. Monitoring equipment, anemometers, wind vanes and data loggers, are to be installed on turbine’s tower. To ensure success of the whole system, individual components need to be modeled first.
Intel’s memory chips will be used to record wind raw data. This data will be downloaded and analyzed in Intel’s powered computers by local people that will receive training to analyze wind data and prepare monthly reports.
SWITCH! – From the Wind to Internet access towards Peace
SWITCH! is the consequence of a collaboration between The Dome, Allard Van Hoorn (artist) and Tunde Shoderu (designer). They initially approached us interested in bringing Internet to remote African villages.
If a community is angry because they have been denied public works projects like electrification by the government, then connecting these villages could help dissolve the formation or support of a potential guerilla group.
Internet access in these types of areas will empower villagers to avoid governmental abuses as they take advantage of the global network that is newly accessible to them. As they become connected with the world, Internet will also prevent people from trying to illegally immigrate to developed countries.
During the early stages of the project we identified key questions that were important to answer as part of our project. The most important was: How to operate in an energy-challenged environment? We realized back then, that before providing any further solution, communities needed a reliable access to electricity.
Wireless Remote Internet Access has been commercially available for some time now. However, the lack of electricity makes its installation unfeasible in most remote regions.
For people living in remote areas, clean electricity has the potential to completely revolutionize their lives. The changes that accompany access to electricity are vast and varied and the social impact of those changes has been widely assessed, and can be easily predicted.
Apart from lighting and Internet access, a number of solutions become available once a reliable electricity system is installed in the community. These solutions have the potential to boost sustainable development and include, but are not limited to:
- Power pumps
- Water disinfection/treatment units
- Equipment for sustainable harvest of the forest
- Remote wind monitoring equipment
- Educational Tools
SWITCH! – Location for first implementation
Latin America > México > Guerrero > San Antonio Tejas
The remote and impoverished mountain communities in south-west México belong to the 2.4 billion people who still depend on the use of traditional biomass for their daily energy services such as cooking, heating and light. 104,849 people live in 998 remote communities in the mountains of Guerrero. Out of those 30% don’t have access to electricity.
Guerrero, the new Chiapas:
On January 1, 1994 a group of indigenous people dedicated to land reform in Chiapas, took up arms against the central government protesting against human rights violations and extreme
poverty. Over night the state became world famous. Fifteen years later conditions in Chiapas have dramatically changed for good and today the southern state is a tourist destination, with first world infrastructure. Unfortunately, Guerrero replaced Chiapas as Mexico’s most impoverished state. Today, Guerrero has the national lowest rates of life expectancy and child mortality.
Local knowledge:
The Dome has worked in Guerrero since 2004 and is familiar with the region. We came across the community of San Antonio Tejas whilst developing an environmental education program to help sea turtles. San Antonio is a good example of young entrepreneurship; amongst other initiatives, it is the only mountain village equipped with rural services for visitors.
On the beach, Rufino, a young father of four, which later became an important team member approached The Dome. He was aware of our work with the turtles and invited us to visit his village up in the mountains. After a seven hours drive on dirt roads, we found a community without access to electricity. Since then, The Dome has kept close contact with the community.
Wind potential:
Old wind resource maps indicate that the mountains of Guerrero experience wind speeds of 6.0 to 5.6 m/s - on average. Available maps took their starting point from publicly available studies,
mostly conducted at widely separated stations with low monitoring heights, typically 10m. Subtle indicators combined with experience of The Dome in this country, pointed to the likelihood of consistent winds in this region.
SWITCH! – Implementation Plan
First, The Dome helps local young entrepreneurs to develop solid business plans. Field staff use a toolkit and their understanding of local issues to help would-be entrepreneurs analyze their market and select clean energy products.
On January 2006, The Dome undertook a training needs assessment and site identification visit to the proposed development site.
The Dome held the first meeting with the community representatives and we agreed on the plan. A baseline data survey explored the wants and needs of the community, then we conducted an analysis of existing products, explored government incentives, provided a basic sketch of how the system will function, and from there a prototype was designed and simulated.
According to the project requirement and technical considerations a continuous 1500 watts energy consumption was assumed as the demand load. The worldwide average energy consumption per capita is about 17,500 kilowatt hours, working out to a continuous consumption of 2000 watts.
3 months ahead of the proposed implementation date, The Dome will work together with the Ministry of Rural Development to develop a team of local madscientists, (engineers/social-
movilizers/educators) who could travel to remote communities to provide training; and, to develop, install, and commission wind-energy systems.
On the first two years 12 stand alone systems will be installed. They will include villages in the 12 districts of the mountain region of Guerrero where the poorest communities are located.
The first wind turbine will be installed at “San Antonio Tejas” and the second one at “El Balcon”.
Installation will be completed by trained members of the community and supervised by engineering staff of The Dome which will conduct regular site inspection visits to oversee the status of the mast, collect recorded wind data and support the local staff activities.
SWITCH! Installations will become fully sustainable after two years with the graduation of the local staff from the WEEP! program.
SWITCH! – Community Event
On the implementation day The Dome assisted by UNESCO international volunteers, will held a community information event for the wider community.
Kids of the community will participate in educational activities to learn about sustainable energy and their local wind turbine. This will help local kids to understand what renewable energy is about and how their local wind turbine will work.
Community members will also have the opportunity to design a totem and paint the sections of the mast that will be raised in their community. This will reduce the visual impact of the tower and will facilitate the appropriation process of the new technology by the community members.
The Dome has successfully presented the workshop “Harness the Wind” at the proposed location for the first implementation. Enthusiastic madscientists visited the community and involved kids in hands on’ activities to learn about the power of the wind and how it can be harnessed to the betterment of the community.
The kids enjoyed participating in activities to understand different energy sources and pretended to be madscientists themselves measuring the wind speed at different locations to find the windiest and best spots for wind turbines.
SWITCH! – Additional benefits - Wind Monitoring Campaign
The Dome in partnership with the Ministry of Rural Development in the state will initiate a Wind Monitoring Campaign on the mountain region. This campaign will scientifically assess the wind resource available in the region towards full-scale Wind Farm implementation in the area.
SWITCH! – Participants
- The Dome - Sustainable Development Consultants
- Ministry of Rural Development - Guerrero State
- United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
The Dome - Local Solutions to Global Issues
The Dome is a Sustainable Development Consulting non-profit organization. We strive to be the most respected global solutions provider specializing in wind engineering and educational services.
With The Dome, communities in the poorest regions of the world, gain the advantage of working with highly skilled engineers, scientists, educators, project managers and other technical specialists who are committed to help them succeed. By building strong relationships and meeting the needs of the communities we serve; our people are committed to create one of the most trusted non-profits in the world.
The Dome professionals take the time to build an understanding of community needs and of the specific environments in which they operate. This enables us to help our clients achieve their short- and long-term economic, social and environmental goals at the lowest possible cost.
Our knowledge of local cultures, languages and regulatory requirements, combined with our global resources, makes it possible for us to provide solutions wherever they are required, around the world and at home.
