Luz en Casa Amazonia has reached a new milestone, by starting up 350 third generation solar home systems –with prepayment– in households of 19 localities in the Mazan and Napo districts (Peruvian Amazonia) within the framework of the “Luz en Casa Napo 2017” project. Daily these systems are going to provide every family with about 6 hours of electric lighting –facilitating and extending productive, educative or recreational activities at home–, mobile charging and operation of compatible devices for about 2 hours. In addition, this service is estimated that will allow significant savings in the energy expenditure of these families.

Throughout a few weeks, the Peru acciona.org team went to every beneficiary locality, where they met with the members of the corresponding Photovoltaic Electrification Committee, who took a specific training in their role as community representatives, and the heads of the benefited families, who were trained in systems installation and service conditions meeting. After the training sessions, users received the equipment and came back home to install them. Then, the acciona.org technical team went to those homes and supervised if the installation was well done. The users had waited excitingly to having lighting with “their panelly”, such as little Miguel who, with a shy smile, explained that his “light is beautiful” and that he is going to use it for his homework.

Recently, the Spain’s Ambassador in Peru –Mr Ernesto de Zulueta–, the General Coordinator and other members of the Spanish Cooperation in Peru, and the Mazan District Mayor went together with representatives of acciona.org to get to know the progress of “Luz en Casa Napo 2017”. This project is carried out in collaboration with the Technical University of Madrid’s Innovation & Technology for Development Centre, the ICAI Engineers for Development Foundation, and the Comillas Pontifical University of Madrid’s Institute for Research in Technology, with co-funding from the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation, as well as the support of the Municipalities of Napo and Mazan Districts.

Acciona.org and the Sustainable Development Goals

The activity of acciona.org impacts positively on the three dimensions of the sustainable development –economic, social and environmental– which are considered in the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) of the UN Agenda 2030. Acciona.org’s mission of providing access to energy, water and sanitation, to people and communities without expectation of having it, impacts directly on the SDG7, Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all, and SDG6, Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.

The execution of this project in the Napo river basin also impacts on the SDG17, Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development: networking with other organizations with the same objectives of the Foundation makes possible to have the technical, managerial, institutional and economic resources which are necessary to develop actions that favour the development of very backward communities, through their access to basic services.

Acciona.org in Peru

Acciona.org operates in Peru through a Peruvian non-profit association, which it established to facilitate access to electricity to isolated rural communities that are not included in the national grid extension. It develops the ‘Luz en Casa’ programme in the Northern Mountains of Peru, in the department of Cajamarca, where it is an electricity public utility within the Peruvian regulation, and with a fee-for-service model that applies the official photovoltaic tariff. It is also executing the Luz en Casa Napo 2017 project, in the Napo basin (Loreto districts of Napo and Mazan) to scale up the sustainable technological and managerial model that is already validated in the Peruvian Amazonia.