While many countries suffer from a lack of energy resources, Ecuador suffers, in a sense, from both the lack and the availability of energy. On the one hand, many rural villages simply do not have access to inexpensive energy sources that would allow them to improve their quality of life. According to a 2001 World Bank estimate, only 55% of rural Ecuador has access to electricity. As a result, rural Ecuadorians, like most of the developing world, must spend valuable time and roughly 10 to 20% of their disposable income on inefficient and costly forms of energy such as wood or trucked-in petroleum products. Use of these fuels can also have a multitude of harmful health and environmental consequences, including “indoor air pollution,” — which the World Health Organization has been estimated to kill 1.6 million people each year — massive deforestation and increased global warming.
On the other hand, Ecuador does have its own gas and petroleum resources. This has obvious economic benefits, but grave costs, as Ecuador has had a troubled history with oil exploration. Forest communities in the oil-rich regions of the Ecuadorian Amazon have been exposed to widespread oil and toxics contamination, which has led to illnesses, including cancer, in local people. Further, oil exploration has displaced indigenous communities and carved up critical habitat in the Amazon rainforest communities.
The organization Altervia, which was founded in Ecuador in 1996, is dedicated to tackling the challenge of how to provide energy for rural communities without inflicting unacceptable damage on the environment. Altervia’s founders perceived that Ecuador’s energy problems shared a single root cause, an over-dependence on wood and fossil fuels. Their vision: the “massive diffusion of a culture that utilizes the energies of nature.” In attempting to accomplish this, Altervia has filled a unique niche, and served for the spread of practical, inexpensive means of generating alternative energy. They do this in three ways:
- Research and develop the types of alternative energy systems most useful and appropriate for different types of communities in Ecuador
- Publicize the most promising options, through printed materials, seminar, site visits and any other means available
- Construct pilot projects, working together with community members who then become the “new experts” on that technology.
One of the key aspects of Altervia’s work is the active participation of the involved communities. In one of its first projects, Altervia members worked with sixty-five local community members to construct a “bio-digester” in the rural community district of Echeandia. This installation decomposes organic waste resulting from fishing and livestock, and produces methane gas and a nutrient-rich fertilizer. With support from Greengrants, Altervia has gone on to build bio-digesters in seven other communities. With each project, they have been able to build on previous experiences and to adapt to the needs of the host community.
Over time, other organizations in Ecuador and around the world began to take notice. Altervia’s approach was something new in the country, not just in the type of facility that was built, but also in Altervia’s partnership with local stakeholders. Altervia’s model of “self-construction” offers a well-trained team of local residents a feeling of ownership in the bio-digester, effective training in its use and maintenance, and access to a support network for problems that might arise. This allowed for community members to effectively take over the project management when Altervia moved on.
Such projects have also encouraged social change. The fertilizer and usable methane gas are not “gifts” from an aid organization or products to be bought at high cost from a distant supplier; instead they are the result of the community’s own hard work and collaboration. This is a model for community self-development that can help to unleash the “alternative energy” of the community itself.
Other pilot projects followed. Altervia set up a solar-powered fruit dehydrator in another rural community. Simple to make and built with 60% recycled materials, it can be adjusted to take into account variables such as temperature, product quality and changes in light conditions. After additional tests, Altervia has begun bringing that same technology to rural areas with high fruit production, in order to help support their economies and encourage the sale of non-timber forests products as a means to protect forest resources.
As another way of utilizing solar power, Altervia set up a solar-powered water heating system that served 225 families of the town of San Juan Bosco, in southeastern Ecuador. This installation is intended to serve as a model for others of its kind. Altervia has also developed a water purification system that uses native water lily species to filter and purify polluted water for agricultural uses. More recently, a second grant from Greengrants has supported Altervia’s pilot project to build a small wind-powered generator, built largely with recycled parts, for use in rural areas.
In addition to setting up pilot projects, Altervia has been both active and opportunistic in its role as a “diffuser” of information. Its members have published materials on alternative energy, traveled widely throughout the country, participated in several conferences and are creating a website. Altervia’s founder, Galo Veintemilla, has also popularized alternative energy by setting up stands at rural fairs and markets, where he encourages men and women from highland communities to test different alternative technologies.
Altervia is also gaining international recognition for its innovative approaches to the energy needs of rural communities around the world. An Altervia booth at the 2004 Social Forum of the Americas held in Quito attracted a large international crowd, and Altervia’s collaborating partners have come to include such international organizations as the Swiss Aid Agency.
Perhaps Altervia’s greatest success is that it has changed the “way things are done” in rural development in Ecuador. In beginning new projects, other non-governmental organizations now routinely consider not only alternative energy, but also Altervia’s operating principles of “self-construction” and use of low-cost and/or recycled parts. Several of Altervia’s projects are likely to provide models for sustainable energy development not only for Ecuador, but for other countries as well.