It's official, I'm leaving for Bluefields, Nicaragua on May 5th to begin my 3 1/2 month internship with blueEnergy. I'll be working in rural Afro-Caribbean and indigenous communities on the Atlantic coast where blueEnergy has been working to install hybrid wind and solar energy systems in order to supply the people with electricity for community centers, schools, and their homes. My position is going to be a sort of community liaison, where I'll actually be based out of one of the small communities, doing evaluation and assessment of the project, teaching in the school on energy and energy use, and learning and teaching about the operation of the wind and solar systems.
Below is information on the organization and their work in Nicaragua from their website (http://www.blueenergygroup.org/):
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blueEnergy is a nonprofit organization that provides a low-cost, sustainable solution to the energy needs of marginalized communities through the construction, installation, and maintenance of hybrid wind and solar electric systems. blueEnergy manufactures wind turbines that are specially designed for simple manufacturing, robustness and efficiency in low wind speeds. blueEnergy manufactures the systems locally, near their point of usage, to keep energy costs low, improve equipment serviceability, and create employment where it is desperately needed.
In Nicaragua, blueEnergy’s initial project country, half of the roughly 5 million inhabitants do not have access to electricity; the situation is particularly grim in the Caribbean Coast region of the country where nearly 80% of the inhabitants go without. In part because of this, and in part the cause of this, the region is the poorest in Nicaragua, itself the second poorest country in the western hemisphere.
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Check out this awesome video on the installation of an electric system in Monkey Point in 2007:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EK-7-ZSvTyA
I won't be one of the people actually building or installing the systems, but am hoping to learn something about that as well.
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