Solar Pioneers in Central America John H. Rogers c. 1993 John H. Rogers In La Aradita, a small village off a dusty road in Honduras' western state of Santa Barbara, atop an adobe house with a red clay tile roof stands a harbinger of things to come, an answer to the darkness in the rural areas....a solar panel. Luis Alonzo, who raises cattle and coffee in the La Aradita area, is the proud owner of a 48 Watt solar module. The photovoltaic module has been faithfully providing energy for lighting, radio, and television since installation in December 1991. Alonzo is a solar pioneer, among the first to take advantage of a new program in Honduras led by the U.S. Peace Corps and Enersol Associates of Somerville, Massachusetts. This program aims to bring light to the country's rural population in an economical, environmentally-friendly way. Energy in Honduras A third of Honduras' five million people are served by the national power company. The electricity comes from one large dam and several smaller ones, plus a few grid-tied thermal diesel plants and smaller municipal systems. The total installed capacity is some 400 megawatts. The rest of the population relies on a traditional off-the-grid solutions such as small generators, kerosene-fueled Coleman lanterns, hurricane lanterns, candles, and sticks of ocote, a bright- burning type of pine. Honduras' experience with solar before the Peace Corps/Enersol push was almost entirely limited to a few bigger or community-wide systems for pumping or clinical refrigeration. These efforts generally suffered from lack of local know-how, proper technical support, and a sense of personal ownership on the part of the beneficiaries. The first step towards development of a sustainable program in solar-based electrification came in 1989, when Enersol Associates appeared on the scene. Enersol is a non-profit organization dedicated to spreading the solar gospel. It was founded in the mid-1980s to promote solar-based rural electrification in the Dominican Republic through training and small business development. With support from Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) and others, Enersol began to explore the possibilities of expanding its highly successful Dominican program into Central America. Over the next couple of years, Enersol provided some training and small demo systems. The solar effort kicked into gear in late 1991, with a couple of five-day Enersol workshops. The workshops aimed at sparking interest within local non-government organizations (NGOs) and installing various demo systems in western Honduras. One other veteran Peace Corps volunteer and I began to focus almost exclusively on getting things moving in the solar field. A year later, solar businesses were up and running in a few areas of the country. Fifty-some systems were installed in houses, small stores, churches, and health centers. Financing funds, albeit small ones, were available Ä a small beginning, but a beginning nonetheless. Meeting the Needs The systems we're promoting here are far smaller than those usually portrayed in Home Power, but so is the current household demand in rural areas. The majority of the systems to date have included a 40 to 50 Watt panel, a 12 Volt battery, a locally-manufactured control box, and four to six 15 Watt fluorescent and incandescent lights. Plus there are hookups to black-and-white televisions, tape players, radios, blenders, and anything else we can find (including, to date, a Casio keyboard and a concrete vibrating machine for roof tile manufacture). For photovoltaic (PV) panels, we use what's available. So far we have tried 40 Watt Siemens panels, 48 Watt and 20 Watt Hoxan panels, and 51 Watt Kyocera panels. Siemens was the only company with representation in the country, but it wasn't doing much with solar in Honduras when we began. Storage For storage, we started with Honduran lead acid car batteries, choosing 75 to 105 Amp-hour batteries for 40 to 50 Watt systems. I was pushing for the larger capacity batteries, figuring that the owners would use a smaller percentage of the total capacity and therefore would benefit from longer battery life. In reality, some of the larger batteries seemed to get the owners used to deficit spending, using a little more each day than the panel generated. By the time the control box marked low voltage, they were days from a full charge. Those with smaller batteries seemed more attuned to the panel and battery (and weather) relationship and the limits of their systems. These folks were happier in the long run. Recently we tried NAPA car batteries, figuring that imported batteries would offer better service without too much increase in price. It's too early to know the results. My partner on one of Honduras' Bay Islands had other prospects. Located off the north coast of the mainland, the Islands have good contact with the U.S. because of direct shipping and a large English-speaking population. The project started there with imported marine batteries and now uses true deep-cycle Trojan batteries. As soon as someone can come up with a good way to get those on the mainland, that'll probably be the way to go, even given the 40-50% import duties on batteries. In the long run, as they say here, the cheap option is expensive, the expensive option is cheap. Another distant possibility is local manufacture of more appropriate batteries. For both economy and sustainability, the greater the local component, the better, especially as currency devaluation is a continual concern. But manufacture of deeper- cycle batteries will require high quality materials and lots of supervision, not to mention capital Ä all a bit beyond our present capacity. Control box The manual control boxes manufactured in Santa Barbara are very basic. The design Ä the same used in the Dominican Republic Ä consists of a disconnect switch, diode, fuseholder, battery voltage indicator lights (the insides of a Radio Shack #22-1635). Also there are connections to the panel, battery, and lights, plus a voltage reducer for 6 or 8 Volts (using the ECG 962/964 as suggested in HP #30). Lighting The small fluorescent lights are assembled by the same small company in Santa Barbara, comprised of my electrician landlord and his brother. They special-order the metal boxes from a national fluorescent fixture maker, and add an imported ballast. The fluorescent tubes, 14 watt (F14T8) or 15 watt (F15T8), are available locally, but sporadically, so the lamp assemblers have to be versatile. We've also used the 8 and 15 watt Thinlite fluorescent lights Ä so far, so good. Low-wattage 12 Volt incandescent lights are still very hard to find on the mainland. We had to bring them in from the Bay Islands or hand carry them back from the U.S. Of the accessories, the most in demand are television sets Ä for news, soap operas, and sports Ä and radio/tape players. The day we went back to Alonzo's house to hook up the TV, the battery got a good workout because of an all-important futbol game which attracted a crowd of neighbors. Blenders, too, are popular, given the heat here and the abundance of tropical fruits. The licuados Ä blended fruit drinks Ä are magnificent. Economics and Energy Budgets A 50 Watt system, installed and guaranteed, are selling for about $700 U.S.: panel: $370; control box: $30-35; battery: $70; and lights (fluorescent) $30-35 each. What kind of bang do customers get for their buck? From a 50 Watt panel, we generally plan on having about 200 Watt-hours of energy available daily. We take into account insolation data on the one hand and losses (panel efficiency, battery auto-discharge, etc.) on the other. A small rural store, for example, might budget that energy in the following way: INSERT Table Usage The impact of these systems is immediate. In Alonzo's house, lighting was probably previously provided by candle and hurricane lamp. No TV provided contact with the world. Even 15 Watt incandescent lights are a vast improvement over candles, and more convenient. The TV and radios hooked up, however, are definitely the most important items in that family's energy budget. A store and home in high, coffee country is now powered by solar. The pre-solar energy needs were met by a Coleman lantern for light and dry cells for the tape player. A car battery that powered the TV was taken periodically to the nearest town for recharging. One fish restaurant on Honduras' Lake Yojoa already had electric light, at least a couple of bulbs for the patrons, and some television for the family. Both lighting and television were powered by the battery from the family pickup. But the drain meant that the truck had to be used daily to recharge. The solar panel offers hassle-free power, plus the option of a few more lights. Cooking continues to be done with wood, and refrigeration, where present, is kerosene-fueled. But solar is a convenient , economical solution to many of the traditional energy needs. The Market The initial customers were mostly what I'd call middle class. In Santa Barbara , these would be owners of medium-sized coffee plantations or herds of cattle, or proprietors of small stores or others businesses. With businesses, solar lighting Ä plus TV, music, and licuados Ä offers an attraction and acts as a lure, at least in the initial stages of a community's exposure to the technology. Teovaldo, the owner of the fish restaurant, pushed hard to get his system installed before big holidays last April. As in other Latin American countries, Holy Week is an all-important vacation time, and fish is high on the list for Holy Week eating. Doubtless the presence of light, with the strategic positioning of one fluorescent lamp by the entrance, helped to draw the nighttime crowds. That week, business was booming. Many of these solar customers are able to pay for the systems outright or over a short period of time. The vast majority of the country's rural population, however, obviously doesn't have that kind of cash lying around. Finding reasonably-priced financing is still an obstacle that needs to be overcome if we are to reach beyond the rural middle class, as Peace Corps, Enersol, and many poorer Hondurans would like. Most Hondurans have little access to credit for such systems. But they could be reached through longer-term financing which would bring the payments down to the range of their currently monthly energy expenditures for candles and dry cells. Where there are existing home-improvement loan programs, it's easier to tap in and take advantage of the in-place administrative procedures for loan disbursement and collection. Around Santa Barbara, however, those who received the first (Enersol-donated) systems made down payments of 15 to 70 percent. The loan was repaid over 24 months or less into a local account set up for solar loans. The interest they pay is comparable to the market rates. In some areas, money is a very seasonal commodity, with "peaks" during coffee harvests and bleaker months following. This affects not only the coffee pickers, but all the local businesses as well. If payment schemes can be geared to reflect these annual fluctuations, with higher payments during one season and lower ones in the next, a greater portion of the rural population in these areas will be able to take advantage of the solar option. Technology Transfer Education and well-developed technical support are key for all of these systems to last and for the solar program to be sustainable. After an installation, a technician teaches the new owners about battery safety and basic maintenance. The technician also helps them design an energy budget, such as the one shown above, matching intended consumption to panel production and battery storage capacity. System abuse by the owners will shorten the batteries' already grim lifelines and make for unhappy customers. Training of the technicians themselves, and of NGO representatives, is done by Enersol in conjunction with Peace Corps. Enersol has an array of workshops for different audiences. The technician workshops are five-day affairs, imparting knowledge of basic electricity, PV technology, system design, and small solar business start-up. They also include two day- long installations to show the participants how to put it all into practice. The would-be technicians who attend generally have practical experience with electricity and construction. The one with whom I worked most closely, for example, was an electrician with the national power company and got into solar after hours and on weekends. Another was an entrepreneurial type who had her own 20 Watt system and saw a lot of interest in her area. With the workshops and a bit of follow-up from Enersol or Peace Corps, the technicians are ready to fly. Because the panel, at least, can be obtained on short-term credit, a few tools and a bit of working capital are enough for a trained technician to get into the business. Enersol has also made small business loans available to new graduates. Subtracting the balance of system, transportation, and labor leaves about $100 for profit and the guarantee. This is an attractive sum for a semi-skilled technician in the rural areas. As the network of technicians and suppliers grows, prices may fall. At every stage in the program's development, letting the costs dictate the price seems to be the proper thing to do. Subsidized sales in the early days of the project could have given the market unrealistic expectations about the cost of solar energy and retarded future sales. One of the strongest points in favor of the Honduran solar program is that for the most part the systems are installed as the result of business dealings. The systems are purchased, not given away or subsidized. Shelling out the bucks for one of these systems generally prompts the owner to take good care of it, to maintain it well, and to experience that ol' sense of personal ownership which the community-wide projects lack. And word gets around. Satisfied customers like Alonzo and Teovaldo are the best PR for this project, which is why we tried to start with a focused program and move slowly. Well- placed demo systems, promotional pamphlets, and press coverage Ä national newspapers, local TV and radio Ä also help to spread the word. Problems Customer satisfaction depends heavily on product reliability and after-sales support. Along with education and orientation, the technicians give complete system warranties of 3 to 12 months. The panels come with the factory warranty, 10 to 12 years, redeemable through the technician or the importer. The batteries come with 12 to 15 month partial guarantees. Beyond the warranties, it's up to the owners to pay a technician to set problems right. But under warranty or no, problems do arise. Aside from minor hardware difficulties (and lengthy rain spells), the main problems have been with the Honduran batteries and some of the lighting. The batteries are, predictably, the systems' weakest point. The Honduran lead-acid batteries are unlikely to perform beyond their meager warranty periods. Even during that time, the sellers probably will declare the warranty void if they know the batteries haven't been used in a car. The couple of battery failures that I have seen in the Honduran lead-acids resulted from one dead cell in each. I don't know enough about battery construction to know why that happened, but in at least one of the cases, the humidity seemed to have been a contributing factor. Some of the fluorescent bulbs begin to blacken on the ends after a short time. I don't know whether to blame the tubes themselves, the ballasts, or the weather. Experiments with some auto lights also proved unfruitful. Vandalism, fortunately, has yet to be a problem. Theft of panels is unlikely, as they are well bolted to the roofs and the house are all lived in full time (and it's impossible to sneak around unobtrusively on a corrugated tin roof.) The Future Individual solar home lighting systems are only one aspect of the program. Solar offers a viable alternative, here as in other countries, for water pumping, refrigeration, and telecommunications, once the supply chain and technical support are fully in place. In late 1992, SNL and VITA (Volunteers In Technical Assistance) collaborated on rehabilitating several solar- powered community water pumping systems on the Bay Islands. The presence now of trained solar technicians and supply channels as a result of the Peace Corps/Enersol work will help ensure the durability of those efforts. The future lies in expanding the network of solar technicians and suppliers, increasing the scope of the program to other parts of Honduras and ensuring competition. Peace Corps/Honduras has assigned a few enthusiastic volunteers from the small business development sector to work on the business aspects. Enersol's regional staff person has been providing training and administrative guidance to Peace Corps and to interested NGOs and government organizations at the national and local levels. There's no question about the viability of these systems in areas served by the grid. Here, as elsewhere, solar is not ready to take on the centralized power, not until the powers that be level the playing field by taking into account environmental impacts. (And not until quite a bit more ground work is done to set up the channels for products and financing.) But in the more rural areas, the new solar program is offering light and sound to the first generation of solar pioneers in an economically and environmentally sound way. And licuados magn¡ficos. Cheers! Access Having done all he could in Honduras, John Rogers is heading for Southern Africa to try his luck there. He can be reached c/o Julie Rogers, 10944 San Pablo Avenue, #224, El Cerrito, CA 94530 ù 510-215-5840 U. S. Peace Corps Ä Solar Energy Program, Apartado Postal 3158, Tegucigalpa, Honduras Enersol Associates, Inc., 1 Summer Street, Somerville, MA 02143 ù 617-628-3550 ù FAX 617-623-5845