Bio digester ( load openings).
Solar energy resources and experience in solar energy in Guatemala
Because of its geography and of its climate, Guatemala has important solar energy resources at hits disposal.
| Types of energy | Potential | Characteristics |
| Sun radiation | Average of 5,2 kWh / m2 - day, i.e 2 200 kWh / m2 - a year. |
Distributed uniformly through all the country, almost constant all year long (slight maximum in April and minimum in December). |
| Wind energy | Important potential of 60 MW, annual average winds from 3.4 to 10 m/s. | Essentially available on Cuchumatanes's high land (> 3 000 m) and on the Caribbean coast. |
| Hydro-electric power | A potential of 10 800 MW. | It is the subject of multiple investigations with the aim of building as many hydroelectric power stations of substantial power (240 sites have just been estimated) as microphone - power plants. |
| Biomass | Important resources | According to the regions, the remains of coffee, corn, sugar cane, animal waste are exploited in direct combustion, distillation and in méthanic fermentation (more than 600 digesters exist). |
| Geothermal science | A potential of at least 60MW | 35 volcanoes are in activity from Mexico to Honduras and Salvador on sites such as San Marcos, Amatitlan, Zunil. Many thermic, electrical projects of low, average or high enthalpy are being studied. |
Few countries in the world combine such favorable conditions - solar radiation, wind, hydraulic, geothermal and bioenergy resources - simultaneously, which are distributed annually and geographically. This is certainly one of the reasons for which Guatemala has carried out so many projects and programs of exploitation of new and renewable energies for several years.
In Guatemala, the Ministry of Energy and Mines establishes the energy policy, ensures the promotion of the national energy resources, regulates and co-ordinates the activities of the energy sector. Among the six managements which compose it, the DGFNR (Direccíon General de las Fuentes Nuevas y Renovables), created in 1983, is responsible for renewable energies.
| Photo J-C Scholle Bio digester ( load openings). |
The particularity of this management of 60 people in 1994 is that it is essentially constituted of engineers with practical experience, spread in Guatemala, who live in rural areas and ensure the promotion and the follow-up of solar installations (bio digesters, photovoltaic installations) among the population. Furthermore, within this management, an anthropologist is instructed to facilitate the acceptability of the technologies of renewable new energy. These particularities explain the undeniable practical experience that it has acquired.
In ten years, this institute has contributed to the drafting of a law of detaxation, to the publication of multiple manuals - in Spanish and local Indian languages - of realization, installation and maintenance. It implemented and led multiple projects of information and demonstration.
Photo J-C Scholle Solar dryer of aromatic plants. |
Probably more than a thousand of bio digesters of Chinese modified model (2 - 20 m 3) were realized with its participation. These bio digesters are more used for producing fertilizers, in order to save synthetic fertilizers, than for producing energy. The difficulties of realization and exploitation - waterproofness of walls to under-ground water infiltrations and gas leaks, starting-up of fermentation, gas manipulation, control of the digester's pressure - were resolved on the spot in a reliable way by the local artisans and engineers.
Many simple domestic solar water boilers, essentially working on trickling, are functioning.
Photo J-C Scholle
Solar trickling water boiler in a " finca ". |
Eucalyptus " Energy forests " were also widely developed by the Head office of new and renewable resources. These forests located on the outskirts of towns, are used as playing fields, leisure parks, residential areas but also as wood reserves. But wood necessities are far upper than supply, they are regrettably victims of their success, and have no time to increase.
An industrial unity of production of ethanol by fermentation and distillation from bagass, achieved on the pacific coast by the Brazilians, has difficulties to spread the high quality ethanol that it produces.
Photo J-C Scholle Production unit of bio-ethanol ( Esquintla). |
The photovoltaic installations spread by the DGFNR are used for education (a television + video-tape + 5 lamps, i.e. a solar panel of 1 m 2 # 2 000 US $), and for health (1 refrigerator + 2 lamps), or business. In the old days, at the grocer's shop of the village, the collective corn mill " Nitztamal " worked on fuel oil. Today it is replaced by an electrical engine supplied by solar panels which also supply a refrigerator for the conservation of vegetables and meats.
All these installations are not an energisation of the population but constituents, energy supports for more comprehensive programs of development. Each time, the engineers have created peripheral structures to settle the realization of these energy installations. By means of their integration in social and economical programs of development, and of these peripheral structures, the sustainability of the energy projects is more durably ensured.
Last updating on 12.03.2009
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