Participatory manufacture offers hope to troubled small wind development projects

摘要

Many attempts to electrify the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua with locally manufactured small wind turbines have not been successful due to a variety of reasons, including the inability of local communities to maintain the turbines. To address this issue, it was proposed that if community members were involved in the manufacturing of the turbine, then they would be more likely to acquire the skills needed to maintain it. In 2009, a collaboration between the international NGOs, GreenEmpowerment and blueEnergy, and the Nicaraguan NGO, AsoFenix set up a pilot project in Cuajinicuil, a small village of just 18 households in the central highlands of Nicaragua. The wind resource here was significantly better than on the Caribbean coast (over 5m/s mean windspeed, as opposed to 3-4m/s), there were fewer lightning strikes, corrosion was less of a problem and access was significantly better.