Ecobreves – CUBA: Solar Energy Arrives in Rural Community

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GUANTÁNAMO, Cuba, Apr 7 2007 (IPS) - Some 60 homes in the Guantánamo community of Los Cerezos, some 1,000 km from Havana, will be supplied with electricity from photovoltaic cells by May. Each house in this mountainous zone with semi-desert soils will be set up with a solar panel with five points of illumination, a color television, and radio, at a cost of about 3,000 dollars per home.

José Luis Rodríguez, delegate from the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment, told Tierramérica the plan will benefit 28,000 people in the region's mountain communities as part of a program to fight desertification and drought.

The initiative is financed by the non-governmental organization from Spain, Sodepaz, and carried out by the Cuban government's Center of Applied Technology for Sustainable Development.