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ENERGIA News Issue 2.1, February 1998

Members’ Activities

Ecuador: The Challenge of Developing a Market for Renewables

Initiating a market transformation process to promote energy renewables in a country like Ecuador, where 25% of the population is still without electricity services, is quite a challenge. The Renewable Energy and Efficiency Training Institute, (REETI), a non-profit organisation based in Washington, DC, decided nine months ago to accept this challenge.

Market transformation implies a change from an old energy paradigm to a new one. In Ecuador, the old paradigm is dominated by large hydro schemes, supplemented by thermal energy, resulting in lots of pollution and erosion and little economic benefit to the population, apart from subsidised energy prices. The new paradigm is characterised by a portfolio of energy resources, including small and private renewables, reducing pollution and broadening economic benefits, reducing consumption while improving productivity and quality of life, and providing services to the 2.6 million people who are presently not supplied with electricity.

This is no small change; it encompasses the whole energy sector, and the rural programme is an important part. Making the whole economy more energy efficient and using renewables on the grid can make it possible to serve the population that is presently not on the grid.

In order to accomplish this market transformation in Ecuador, REETI, together with the Ministry of Energy of Ecuador, formed the Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency in May 1997. This Centre fosters the use of renewables and energy efficiency as a solution for the inadequate energy supply in the urban and the rural communities. Two core programmes have been started at the Centre:

1. The Micro Hydro Plant Development Programme (for plants that generate less than 50MW) follows two strategies. The first is to ensure financing for the micro hydro projects through funds of the main Ecuadorian development bank, Corporación Financiera Nacional. The second involves providing technical evaluation of the projects, so that they comply with environmental and engineering criteria.
2. The Energy Efficiency Technical Assistance Programme helps Ecuadorian industries improve their productivity while saving energy. Through REETI, several ESCOs (Energy Service Companies) will come to Ecuador to provide energy audits and to implement and finance the actions needed as a result of the audits.

In its next year programme, the Centre plans to become engaged in a national Rural Electrification Programme using renewable energy. One of the core points of this programme is the active participation of women in the communities which will potentially benefit from the programme.

As part of the consolidation of current programmes, the Centre hopes to broaden its horizon of action with the incorporation of gender issues in order to strengthen the programme's results. As the director of REETI is herself an Ecuadorian woman, she certainly understands that working towards the satisfaction of women's energy needs is the path that will lead toward a real transformation of the energy market.

The author, E. Parker, is director of REETI-Ecuador. Since March 1997 she has been working on the development of the REETI office in Ecuador. For more information, please contact: Eliana Parker, Director, REETI-Ecuador, Páez 657 y Carrión, Quito, Ecuador; Tel. +59.32.533.020, Fax +59.32.592.504, Email eparker@pi.pro.ec, http://crest.org/renewables/reeti/index.html

Solar Cookers in Ecuador: Jobs and improved energy use

The Ecuadorian Institute of Research and Training of Women, IECAIM (Instituto Ecuatoriano de Investigaciones y Capacitación de la Mujer, Punto Focal del INSTRAW) based in Quito, Ecuador, is an autonomous organisation, which was founded in 1986, after the Third United Nations Conference on Women held in Nairobi, Kenya. IECAIM, which is an INSTRAW focal point, is working for sustainable development and environmentally sound technologies and is disseminates knowledge about new and renewable energy sources for the future such as solar cookers and solar dryers. For example IECAIM initiated, in collaboration with the Ecuadorian Institute of Energy (INE), a training programme for rural women on fuelwood-saving and improved cookers designed to provide a practical solution to the problem of deforestation in Ecuador's countryside. The participants were rural women belonging to the Comunas Campesinas and were instructed in the use of alternative energy sources, such as solar, biomass and geothermal. Participants learnt how to construct solar stoves and grain solar dryers. The new stoves save fuel and decrease women's exposure to the noxious effects of smoke. The improved grain dryers based on solar and wind energy protect the grains from animals, rain etc., and decrease the necessity for travelling long distances in search of fuelwood.

An additional benefit of the programme is the creation of income generating opportunities for participants, who may eventually earn income by constructing and selling these new devices to other poor rural women.

In addition IECAIM initiated, in 1994 (in Quito), a project on construction and commercialisation of Solar Cookers which is benefiting 350 women and their families. It consists of the establishment of four micro-enterprises through existing women's organisations, in which the women construct and sell the solar cookers at a cost of $25 US. The project received financial support from the Ministry of Social Welfare.

IECAIM provided training for the women on the formation of micro-enterprises and commercialisation, as well as giving to each group the material for the construction of ninety solar cookers to enable the establishment of an artisan industry. As a result of the project, the women have work, they teach about the use and importance of solar cookers, they sell the cookers and they receive incomes for the improvement of their standard of living. The sale of the solar cookers was promoted through television, radio and the newspapers. This has also led to an increase in demand for similar projects from other communities throughout the country.

This article is based on the information provided by Dr. Fabiola Cuvi Ortiz from IECAIM.

If you want to know more about the programme, please contact:
Dr. Fabiola Cuvi Ortiz, Director, Research and Training Institute for the Advance of Women (IECAIM), 6 de Diciembre 2817 y República Luis Felipe Borja 217, Quito, Ecuador; Tel. +593.563.232(o) or +593.525.517(h), Fax +593.563.242