We bring electricity to 1,100 additional homes in the Peruvian Amazonia
03/08/2021- acciona.org recently finished a new phase of supplying solar home systems within Luz en Casa Amazonia to benefit more than 1,100 households in the Napo, Ucayali and Amazonas basins in Peru.
- This supply is a part of the project started in 2019 in collaboration with the Technical University of Madrid and with cofunding from the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation.
acciona.org has expanded its activity in the Peruvian Amazonia with the installation of 1,100 new solar home systems. This initiative is the third phase of the Luz en Casa Amazonia programme, which already provides electricity to over 400 homes.
Luz en Casa Amazonia has given over 7,400 people access to electricity in their homes for the first time.
The programme’s third phase enables acciona.org to provide reliable and sustainable electricity to 30 new isolated and hard-to-reach communities in the Napo, Ucayali and Amazon river basins, where access to the conventional power grid is impossible. This is due to the communities’ distribution amd geographic isolation, the fact that they can only be reached by river and also their complicated environmental balance.
acciona.org uses third generation solar home systems that are easily manageable, transportable, robust and free of pollutants, which makes them a suitable option for very remote and environmentally sensitive environments. These systems provide around 6 hours of electrical lighting per day, and can charge a cell phone and power an electrical device (radio, TV...) for 2 hours.
These systems make life easier for the program’s beneficiaries when carrying out productive, domestic, educational and recreational activities at home. In addition, by replacing other improper lighting methods, such as using candles or oil lamps, these systems can prevent eye and lung diseases caused by smoke and fires. From an environmental point of view, they also help to minimize uncontrolled battery dumping.
All users of acciona.org’s programmes receive training sessions on how to install the equipment themselves in their homes (under the supervision of the entity), on how to carry out basic maintenance services on the equipment and also how to maximize their benefits. acciona.org acts as the operator of these installations, guaranteeing the correct functioning of all equipment.
Public-private collaboration
For this project, acciona.org counted on the collaboration of the Technical University of Madrid and co-financing from the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation, through its 2018 call for Innovation Actions for Development.
On this occasion, both the supply and supervision of the systems, as well as the training sessions, were carried out under rigorous health precautions to avoid the risk of coronavirus contagion, both for the beneficiaries of the service and for the acciona.org teams themselves.
Additionally, at the begining of the COVID-19 pandemic, acciona.org also contributed to the purchase of protective material for health workers in the Napo Health Network, as well as other basic medical equipment.
acciona.org is committed to the long-term sustainability of its services. The Luz en Casa Amazonia's electricity services are provided for a very affordable fee, which is lower than what families previously had to spend on rudimentary lighting solutions. These lower prices cover the costs of operation and maintenance of the systems.
This service is supported by the work carried out at the Luz en Casa Centres, run by local entrepreneurs, where the programme’s users go to receive advice, equipment repair and buy compatible electric appliances, and also for processing payments for the service.
acciona.org seeks to contribute to the universalization of basic services, which prove essential for development, while respecting the traditions and ways of life of local indigenous communities. To this end, the foundation functions under the international standards of the rights of indigenous peoples.
The Amazon region is an area of extremely high ecological value, covering more than 6.7M of land across 9 different countries. The Amazonian communities, mostly indigenous people from diverse ethnic groups, live in remote and hard-to-reach locations that are only accessible by river, with extreme temperature and rainfall conditions. This, added to the cost and impact of the construction and maintenance of distribution networks, means that the concept of widespread access to conventional electrification systems are unfeasible in said communities.
acciona.org serves to bring energy, water and sanitation access to very low-income groups. Since 2008, the group has provided electricity to isolated rural areas in Mexico, Peru and Panama, and since 2018, it has brought access to clean water and sanitation to these areas as well. Almost 64,000 people have benefited from its business activities so far.