By Lilliam Riera
Cuba's favourable geographic position, with little change in the sun's intensity from January to December, permits it to tap a clean and renewable energy source throughout the entire country equivalent to 20 billion tons of oil every year, which could be a key factor in solving the national energy problem.
However, the high cost of photovoltaic cells — whose price is determined precisely by large petroleum, coal and nuclear energy transnationals who have a monopoly of solar panels — is the main obstacle in the widespread use of this alternative.
"Currently, the price of the panels is determined by the United States", Luis Berriz, director of the Cuban Society for the Promotion of Renewable Energy Sources and Respect for the Environment (CUBASOLAR) told Granma International.
"Each watt that is purchased", he says, "costs approximately US$4.50, and the panels have between 60 and 80 watts. But once installed, they are much more economical."
In Cuba there is a movement to use renewable sources (solar, wind, hydro and biomass), so that they gradually provide a larger percentage of energy production with the goal of sustainability.
Even though the island wasn't affected by the world petroleum crisis in 1973, ever since the beginning of the '80s the country considered the gathering of knowledge and experience aimed at energy saving a necessity, which later became key during the abrupt decrease in fuel imports after the fall of the Eastern European socialist bloc and the disintegration of the Soviet Union.
In achieving this goal, CUBASOLAR has contributed much. Since its creation in 1994, this non-governmental organisation has implemented the Program for the Development of National Energy Sources and, in close collaboration with various ministries, universities and research centres, is completing important social and educational projects to increase the population's understanding of the use of these alternatives and care of the environment.
"The sun shines for everyone and can't be blockaded nor dominated nor destroyed", asserted Berriz. There are now plans to produce the panels in Cuba in the future. In the western province of Pinar del Rio, all the conditions are being created to manufacture silicon crystal, the main raw material, with Cuban sand.
Even though conventional fuels currently provide more than 90% of the world's basic energy needs, solar power is being called upon to take the helm. It doesn't pollute like fossil fuels — whose large emissions of carbon dioxide cause acid rain and the greenhouse effect — nor does it produce radioactive waste like nuclear energy. It's readily available and always renewable. Specialists state that it can cover much more than the basic energy needs of the entire world, today and in the future.
Even the transnationals recognise that it's the only source capable of supplying urban consumers directly. BP Amoco, a petroleum multinational, has bet on solar energy for 20 years and has considered it "a short- and medium-term business", said a representative of the corporation, according to the Xinhua news agency.
School city
The reconstruction of the Camilo Cienfuegos School City, located in the Sierra Maestra mountains, in the eastern province of Granma, is the most important project that CUBASOLAR is working on.
Designed for 20,000 students, it was dreamt of by Fidel long before the triumph of the revolution, says Berriz and affirms, "It's the most beautiful school in the world".
It's designed according to the path of the sun, "which is the path of life". It has a bioclimatic architecture, with well-ventilated rooms which receive natural light and have solar heaters. It gets power from a small three-megawatt hydro-electric dam on the Yara River, and possesses efficient boilers fuelled by biomass.
A historical curiosity is that this centre was where Che did the first voluntary work done on the island, in addition to serving as the site of the first July 26 celebration outside Havana, which coincided with its inauguration in 1960.
"Here we gave the first workshop on phototherapy in Cuba", recalls the director of CUBASOLAR and adds: "We've installed in the medical offices in the mountains a very advanced technique in the world, based on infrared technology, where laser equipment is fed by solar energy".
Working with the Ministry of Education and with advice from the Ludwig Belkowy Foundation of Germany, CUBASOLAR is supporting teachers in the mountains with shock-resistant Solux 11 solar radio/lamps, with rechargeable batteries to be used in rural areas.
Solar heaters have been installed in day-care centres, in addition to serious irrigation projects in places like the San Antonio del Sur coastal strip, in the province of Guantánamo, previously a desert which now exhibits abundant vegetation that guarantees the sustainable production of mild for children in that region.
La Higuera
Undoubtedly, the proposal of bringing electricity to more than 1200 doctors' offices located in Cuba's mountainous regions and being able to guarantee greater medical attention to roughly 820,000 people is a project that's as beautiful as it is difficult, and to which this organisation is giving due priority.
Bringing electricity through solar panels to a medical office, including all the equipment (television, refrigerator, radio, telephone, etc.) costs around US$5870, Berriz says and points out that to date 220 medical offices have benefited from this method and many others from hydro-electric mini-dams, which are cheaper than laying electric cables to those remote areas.
Following the course of the heavenly king, this NGO, in collaboration with a similar organisation from Europe, arrived in the town of La Higuera, in Valle Grande, Bolivia, and brought energy through solar panels to the small school where Ernesto Guevara and his guerilla fighters were killed. The project was supported by both countries' embassies.
With electricity came health. The school was converted into a medical post — through the initiative and support of the Felix Varela Association of Bolivia, Germany and Cuba — and today has all the necessary equipment, equal to Cuban medical offices. There, a Bolivian doctor trained in Cuba offers his services free of charge to the citizens of the town and those from seven other rural communities.
A tropical greenhouse
In countries of medium and high latitudes, greenhouses are used to cultivate plants and vegetables from other climates. In Cuba they don't work out, because they would require great amounts of energy to cool the houses down, in order to achieve the desired temperatures.
However, the development of Cuba's agriculture demands not only obtaining high-quality hybrid seeds to reduce large imports and guarantee the production of food, but the cultivation of certain types of vegetables year round, to supply the population and meet the demands of the growing tourism industry.
"The 'summerhouse' was the solution", Berriz affirms. Designed in line with the characteristics of a tropical climate, in the glass ceiling it has a clear-bottomed tray filled with a substance that performs the function of "a liquid filter". In this way, only useful solar radiation, and in the quantities needed by the plant, passes through.
In addition, there is strict control over blights and diseases here. "We've already grown varieties of tomatoes with specific size and texture characteristics", he says.
Currently there are three "summerhouse" projects: two in the Solar Energy Research Centre in Santiago de Cuba and another now being remodelled at the National Institute of Agricultural Sciences in Havana.
One of these facilities in Santiago de Cuba is also going to be used to grow microalgae. "They are biofactories", Berriz explains, "where you produce what you want depending upon the variety". In Santiago, experiments have been done with a very rich variety of beta carotene (vitamin A) and other substances, which have made pigs, chickens and nesting hens fed with them much more resistant to illnesses.
Berriz also spoke about the lectures and even about the activities for children that are being held in the Palace of Sciences, the old National Capital building, as well as about the quarterly magazine the organisation publishes called Energia y tu, to encourage knowledge about energy.
Almost at the end of our conversation, despite its length, he couldn't cover all of CUBASOLAR's projects. Berriz wanted to give me a scoop:
In coordination with the City of Havana Historian's Office, a sun clock made from a small and old cannon will be placed in the San Carlos de la Cabana Fortress, along with its older brothers that night after night, at nine o'clock sharp, issue a blast reminding us of the times in which that hour signalled the closing of the gates of the old wall that surrounded the colonial city.
[From Granma International.]