Solar

Tom F.

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Jan 1, 2002
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I was delighted to see Keith started this thread and had no idea there was such a great resource on this board. I have enjoyed reading the early post and am learning a great deal.

I originally went to the DR as a Peace Corps volunteer in 87 as a water volunteer. At Entrena I met Richard Hansen who gave a yearly talk to the new volunteers about solar energy. He was contracted out every year to train 4 volunteers about the technology and helping someone establish a small business installing and maintaining the systems. A volunteer in Los Tocones and Los Naranjos, Samana and Rio Limpio, Dajabon installed a hand full of systems but never really got the business part started the few years before I arrived. Another in Sanchez had a couple demonstration systems in place.

Jimmy Stewart was working with Howard Fickle and Oscar Torres was selling Arco panels in the capital. Martin de Moya was representing this crazy (but nice to me) guy from NY who sold mostly Kyosera and some amorphous panels that didn't work (I guess the technology has improved since). The later faded out when the NY guy died.

Another person in Santiago was beginning to get involved and had concentrated most of his activity in Jarabacoa and Janico. Helmut later became a good friend and was one of the people I respected most on this planet. I began attending meetings that Helmut started for those who started small businesses providing solar energy services.

Meanwhile, Richard Hansen was busy in the Sosua/Puerta Plata region since 1984 and was developing a model that would later be recognized internationally and put the DR on the map when it comes to solar. Richard has been struggling with the issue of subsidies and how it affects the work for almost 20 years.

In the beginning there where lots of give away projects. When the volunteer left the sight or after the outside organization left, the system was not maintained and after a few years they were not being used or were functioning at a fraction of their capacity.

I started working with a community group in Los Narajos, Castillo that was my original site after training. We started out having a meeting and were going to start a community business. My counterpart and his brother, and I ended up collecting the money from three families who were brave enough to buy the first systems. We went to the capital and bought three panel from Oscar, batteries, wires, tape, grapas and the rest we needed. The roofing mounts and dc lights were hard to get and we had to go to Sosua where Richard's business was on the main road outside of Sosua (near where Johnny Honda used to live).

Francisco and I (my counterpart) had went through Richard's training and I installed a system with another volunteer in Los Narajos, Samana by this time and Francisco, Jesus and I did a pretty good job and the customer were happy. It was a good feeling to walk around the campo at night and see the systems working. There was two families with a generator and everyone used candles and keronse for light, dry cells for their radio and some used a car battery for a small black and white TV, which had to be taken to SFM or el cruze to get charged. Usually about once a week depending on how much they used it and it's capacity to hold a charge.

I later moved my sight to SFM for my own sanity. I still didn't speak Spanish very well and felt like a zoo animal that was allowed to walk around freely when I lived in the campo. I walked down to this little creek to bath and by the time I walked up the hill I was sweating and dirty again. I never figured out how to walk in chancletas (off the main road) and the bottom of my feet just couldn't handle going barefoot. My program director at Peace Corps had given me a motorcycle after I threatened to leave (our group was the last to get them) and gave me money to buy a basic tool kit.

I made a decision to work with Francisco and Jesus to start their own business instead of working with the community as a group. This later caused a number of problems with some of the community and I regrettably caused a split in the community where half were opposed to the move and half understood our argument that everyone else is busy with their own lived and work and we would be doing all the work anyway and Richard was very convincing on pushing me in that direction.

Later on Citibank gave us about US$3000 and another group gave us a little more to finance systems for those who could not pay the entire US$400-500 for a 50w system. We had probably installed about 20 systems in the 3 months since the first installation. We were going all over the place around the campos in San Francisco de Macoris.

While in SFM I began going into the Associacion para el Desarrollo de Provincia Duarte who had worked and was working with other volunteers in the area. When the Citibank money came in we set up a fund at the Associacion (advice of Richard) and gave the residents of Los Narajos preference in accessing the revolving fund. By this time the half of the community had revived the plan to pay for the extension of the electrical grid to the community with the money. It would of finished the 2 or 3 kilometers with the posts, but would not be enough for wire or the transformer. I insisted in be used for solar and they thought they should use it anyway they wanted to since it was solicited in their name. I had the checks and I won that battle. We ended up installing 40 systems with that fund over the next six months. My program manager and the Associacion were visited by the opposing members of the community but my argument won out in the end. (What happened to the money is another story)

Francisco and Jesus collected the payments every month and were eventually working by themselves. I would go the capital and pick up the panels, keep them supplied, monitor the books and the Assosiacion, go to Sosua and keep updated with Richard pick up the lights and panels if they had them to sell. It wasn't easy sometimes to get the needed materials. Francisco and Jesus bought a concho and were mobile now. They would send the materials as far as they could in a public camioneta and carry the materials to the homes sometimes by foot. The coordination was something but fun. We would generally install systems in very remote areas to the better off families who had black and white TV's. I had some of the best food and juices while doing this work.

We had started installing systems about 6 months into my Peace Corps tenure and after a year we had 100 systems installed, 40 with the fund and 60 sold cash. I really lucked out that Francisco and Jesus were that most honest Dominicans I have every met. They did everything on the up and up, learned how to be concerned with doing quality work, backing up their work and product they sell, and focus on the customer. He pumped every peso back into the business and had RD$50,000 in his checking account and another $50,000 in inventory. After I left the country they tapped into the micro loan programs, continued to be active in the small solar business association that met once a month in Sosua (Richard and Helmut were helping 8-10 other people scattered around the country to do the same) and supported his family with the business. On a later visit he showed me where he dedicated his Master's thesis to me and his parents. (He studied letras and wanted to teach before I met him). He told me that with the money he earned from the business he would not have been able to finish his studies.

I could not mention any of this without talking about John Stevens. I was another water volunteer (only 4 of us out of 48) and lived in El Partido, Dajabon. He started helping his counterpart Teofilo to start his own business. They ended up matching Francisco, Jesus and I and we had a nice competition going there. Every time we met up in the capital or visited each other at our sites, we were always trying to out do each other. I had a lead because I got started first but Teofilo was a bit more of a Tigre and was most aggressive that my duo. By the time we left both had around 100 installations. Over the next 8 years or so, I would guess that each installed close to a 1000 systems each and both still do it today.

I returned in 1997 to manage Soluz in Sosua for Richard. He had made commitments of US$3 million to expand a leasing program he started a year earlier to try to improve dissemination in the campos without grid connections and improve the maintenance of the systems. USAID was spending $3 million to study and promote the wind resources in the DR. They had pumped $500,000 into solar water pumping where maybe 20 community systems were installed. There was a huge mess with people accusing others of conflict of interest and it really slowed the work down. The EU was subsidizing 600 systems near Santiago Rodriguez. The two years I spent on my return was very interesting and there was a great deal of activity in the country. I haven't lived there since 99 and visited since 00, so I can't give you any updates except for Soluz.

You asked for it Keith. I will stop here but have many other things to share.
 

Keith R

"Believe it!"
Jan 1, 2002
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Many Thanks, Tom! ?Bienvenido!

Terrific first post, Tom. Hope it's just the first of many on this subject. And I suspect you have alot of insight to offer us on several other issues too, such as wind -- maybe water & sanitation too?

Thanks much! Feel free to post as much & as often as you wish on this & other environmental topics here -- I welcome it!

Two questions I have frequently asked myself (and others) and would love to address are: (1) What keeps alternative energy sources such as solar and wind power from becoming more widely used in the DR? (2) How might this be best remedied?

Best Regards,
Keith

P.S. Any possibility of roping some of the fellows you mentioned into jumping into this thread & offering us their tales, insights, experience?
 
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Keith R

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Jan 1, 2002
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A Solution to the Traffic Light Problem?

Well, even though my other solar-related questions have yet to be answered, I'll put out another one that I have had for quite some time. Why can't the DR use back-up batteries charged by solar panels for all of its traffic lights, such that these signals are never off?
 

jsizemore

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Aug 6, 2003
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solar traffic lights

How long after say a $2000 setup was installed at every street corner do you think they would last before they we used to power a killer stereo system in someones shack.
John
 

Keith R

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Jan 1, 2002
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Re: solar traffic lights

jsizemore said:
How long after say a $2000 setup was installed at every street corner do you think they would last before they we used to power a killer stereo system in someones shack.
John

Hmmm, good point. Any simple but effective way to protect it against such tapping, theft or vandalism?