The first students of the Renewable Energy diploma course are to graduate from the Zamorano Panamerican Agricultural School, having contributed to create a new energy market. These newly trained micro-entrepreneurs are enabling people in rural areas of Honduras to access credit to install and maintain renewable energy systems.
Francisco Chavez (right) and colleagues show one of the 94 improved cookstoves they installed in homes in Honduras.
Luck changed for Francisco Chávez, an electrician from the Valle de Ángeles community in Honduras, the day the director of the local school asked him to install a socket. “While on the job – says Francisco – she told me that the Zamorano School would be giving a lecture to the community”.
After passing a series of interviews and exams along with 100 other applicants, Chávez became one of the 25 scholars earning the Diploma in Renewable Energy offered by the Zamorano Panamerican Agricultural School. “This kind of opportunity doesn’t come along every day,” he says enthusiastically.
The diploma, which is studied as part of the Economic Development and Environment course, was taught at the Centre for Renewable Energy in the Zamorano Panamerican Agricultural School. Founded in 2007 in Honduras, the school was originally known in the area for installing energy efficient cookstoves. However, its first big opportunity for expanding the school’s renewable energy curriculum came with the award for one of the best innovative ideas from the 2009 IDEAS Energy Innovation Contest. Sponsored by GVEP, the Interamerican Development Bank (IDB), the German Development Cooperation (GIZ), and the South Korean government, the contest targeted projects which had the potential to improve energy access and efficiency across Latin America and the Caribbean.
Thanks to a US$150,000 grant from GVEP and US$37,000 contributed by the Zamorano School, 25 micro-entrepreneurs from Honduras could take advantage of a two-year scholarship. The money was also used to build a solar demonstration park, to carry out studies into the credit model and to design modules for the diploma in the various renewable technologies: solar, hydro and biodigestion, as well as touching on other productive sectors, such as horticulture, biodiversity research and environmental management.
“The diploma is based on providing training and qualifications for the local work force”, says Alejandra Claure, project coordinator, with 25 students - 22 men and three women, 23 of whom come from communities outside Honduras’ capital Tegucigalpa.
Now, after nearly two years of study, Francisco Chávez, like his fellow students, has set up a small business specialising in renewable energies and can count on a set of skills which contribute to solving the problem of a chronic lack of energy access in many rural areas.
According to studies carried out by Zamorano, the country has a great potential to expand renewable energy markets, as two million Hondurans do not have access to electricity, and nearly the same number, if not more, still cook over an open fire.
For this reason, Professor Arie Sanders, Director of the Socio-Economic and Environmental Development course, and a group of professionals began two years ago to think of ways to bring about change. They came to the conclusion that “what was needed was a way to enable micro-entrepreneurs to make modern energy technologies and services available in every community, at affordable rates, through a micro-credit system.”
“We are training small businesses and energy developers, not just people,” says Alejandra Claure, one of Sanders’ students and coordinator of the GVEP sponsored project.
The course included both technical and business modules which were created according to the learning-by-doing methodology (50% theory, 50% practice). In the technical modules, students were trained on the installation of solar panels, improved stoves and biogas digesters, while participants in the business modules learned about basic management concepts to operate their microenterprises and wrote their own business plan.
Additionally, the Project “Creating local renewable energy markets for rural SMEs” partnered with four Honduran micro finance institutions - PRISMA, FUNDAHMICRO, FUNED OPDF and JAMZ. The latter, Junta de Apoyo Mutuo de Zamorano, created by the institute itself, is present in various municipalities across the country. All four provide loans to the possible clients previously identified by the students, who can now be considered SMEs. The microfinance institutions reserve the right to grant or refuse loans, according to their parameters.
Currently, the microfinance institutions typically offer a loan for a solar panel payable in instalments of $50 per month over 10 months, but this varies according to the size of the loan and the agreed repayment period. Zamorano found out that $50 is close to what an average family spends monthly on candles and kerosene.
The 200W solar panels were installed in 5 rural schools, 2 kindergardens and one church.
Currently, what the micro-creditors offer to their clients is a loan for a solar panel payable in instalments of $50 each over 10 months. Zamorano found that this figure is close to what an average family spends monthly on candles and kerosene.
The collaboration with GVEP ends in December 2011, and thus far the project has saved 44.27 tonnes of CO2 through the installation of energy efficient cookstoves and solar panels.
So far, the stoves installed throughout the project have benefited 94 households, and a total of 470 people in rural Honduras. 200 W solar panels have also been installed in five schools, two kindergartens and a church.
In schools, a 200 W panel can power a 32 inch television, a DVD player and a small sound system. “At the rural school of Güinope, apart from being an essential teaching aid, the equipment is used as an incentive, with good results on the students’ performance,” says Alejandra Claure.
Before installing any renewable energy system, a thorough assessment of the community needs is carried out by the Zamorrano team. A consultative process ensures that both the beneficiaries and the authorities are involved. In the case of the Güinope School, the student’s parents paid for the installation, the Mayor’s office donated the equipment, while Zamorano provided the qualified workforce.
When GVEP interviewed some of the students, many were found in Las Cortinas, a community in the coffee-growing area in the municipality of Teupasenti.
“To be helping family access modern forms of energy is a very rewarding experience” says Francisco Chávez, who has installed four improved cookstoves and seven solar panels over the course of his studies. “It’s a way of catching up with progress. The social impact of moving from darkness to light cannot be underestimated when you think that the families of Las Cortinas are now able to invite people into their homes at night”.
The future looks promising for the energy micro-entrepreneurs, who are about to graduate from the Zamorano Panamerican School. Over the last two years they have paved the way for a renewable energy market in Honduras, “People are less afraid of being cheated as they slowly realise the benefits of these alternative technologies,” explains Maria Alejandra Claure of Zamorano.
The potential for growth is huge. According to Zamorano’s calculations, “there is demand for 9,000 solar panels in this area alone. Now is the time for these newly trained, entrepreneurs to start offering their services, as the coffee harvest is yet to start and disposable cash becomes available”.
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