The public National Autonomous University of Mexico operates a demonstration agrovoltaic plot to study the effects of the mixture of solar energy and crops in the town of San Miguel Topilejo, in the south of Mexico City. Credit: Emilio Godoy / IPS

By Emilio Godoy
SAN MIGEL TOPILEJO, Mexico, Sep 26 2024 (IPS)

Verónica Molina, an indigenous Comcaac woman, first came into contact with solar energy in 2016, when she travelled to India for training on communal photovoltaic facilities. This later enabled her to take part in the installation of the first solar systems and family vegetable gardens in her community, Desemboque del Seri, in northern Mexico.

Later on, she was invited to the project Energy, Water and Food Security for Indigenous Peoples in Semi-Arid Coastal Regions of Northern Mexico, sponsored by the governmental National Council of Humanities, Science and Technology (Conahcyt), which began in 2022.

“We plant vegetables, because there are no other seeds to use. They are for self-consumption. With the panels, we pay less for energy, and with the gardens we save money on vegetables,” the solar activist told IPS from Desemboque del Seri, some 1,900 kilometres from Mexico City.

“We realised that they had health, economy, food, and land issues. We looked for comprehensive solutions, aligned with the budget. They have the sea or the desert, it's an extremely arid place,” Rodolfo Peón.
In addition to producing their own electricity, the participating families harvest a variety of vegetables in Desemboque and neighbouring Punta Chueca, Comcaac territories inhabited by some 1,200 people on the coast of the state of Sonora, and one of Mexico’s 69 indigenous peoples, who also fish.

While the panels cover between 25% and 75% of a household’s consumption, each of the more than 40 family gardens provides between 100 and 200 kilograms of vegetables for each of the two annual harvest seasons.

The region suffers from marginalisation, poverty and disease. In contrast, it receives a daily solar irradiation of 5.9 kWh/m2 and an annual rainfall of 200 millilitres, which makes seasonal agriculture difficult.

The initiative consists of a hybrid system that combines photovoltaic generation and food production, located under the panels to harness the sun, shade and dew that they capture during the night, which is in vogue in countries such as Germany, Brazil and the United States.

This eco-technology is still in its infancy in Mexico, and it is unknown how many systems are in operation in the country. The Mexican Agrovoltaic Network is preparing a census to determine their status.

In fact, the Strategic Plan on Climate Change for the Agri-Food Sector includes among its goals the use of solar panels for electricity generation.

Comcáac indigenous people have installed agrovoltaic systems, which combine solar energy and family gardens, in the Desemboque de los Seris community, in the northern Mexican state of Sonora. Credit: Courtesy of Rodolfo Peón

Mitigation

“We realised that they had health, economy, food, and land issues. We looked for comprehensive solutions, aligned with the budget. They have the sea or the desert, it’s an extremely arid place,” Rodolfo Peón told IPS from Hermosillo, the capital of Sonora.

“We saw that agriculture was an alternative to improve their diet and provide electricity,” added the researcher from the Department of Industrial Engineering at the public University of Sonora, referring to the project in the Comcáac territory.

This is how the agrovoltaic scheme, the only low-cost solution for the area, came on the scene.

Funded by Conahcyt’s National Strategic Programmes with some 450,000 dollars, the project addresses the components of energy, water, food, health, biodiversity and territorial defence.

Since 2018, the government has been driving, with little success, for internal capacity (sovereignty) in food production for Mexico’s population of some 130 million people.

Mexico currently ranks 11th in the world in food production. During the first seven months of this year it exported more agri-foods than in the same period last year, although it also bought more, albeit in an agricultural balance with a surplus.

Mexico ranks 11th in the world in food and agricultural crop production, and has high agrovoltaic potential, with 20 million hectares planted and more than 10,000 megawatts of solar energy. Infographic: Sader

The country is highly vulnerable to the effects of the climate crisis, such as drought, rising temperatures and the spread of pests.

As a result, producers of maize, beans, wheat, coffee and other traditional products are already suffering the impacts of phenomena such as this year’s acute water shortages, and will suffer even more negative impacts in the long term, with consequences for quality of life, income and the rural environment.

Latin America’s second largest economy has around six million rural production units, of which 75% are less than five hectares in size and only 6% have more than 20 hectares, supporting some 20 million people.

In addition, 79% of electricity generation depends on fossil fuels, followed by wind (7%), photovoltaic (4.5%), hydroelectric (4.4%) and nuclear (3.7%). According to the Electricity Transition Law, the country should generate 35% of its electricity from alternative sources by 2024, but this is a distant goal.

The administration of outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, which began in December 2018 and will end on 1 October, put the brakes on energy transition in order to strengthen the state-owned Federal Electricity Commission, which burns gas for electricity generation, and Petróleos Mexicanos, thus favouring fossil fuels.

The country has agrovoltaic potential, with 20 million hectares of land under cultivation and more than 10,000 megawatts of photovoltaic power, 70% of which is in extensive facilities.

In the town of San Miguel Topilejo, in the south of Mexico City, the Sustainable and Educational Agrovoltaic Plot consists has ten crops sheltered under solar panels using drip irrigation. Credit: Emilio Godoy / IPS

Hybrid experiments

At a height of four metres, six modules of photovoltaic panels capture solar energy which, after passing through a converter, will be transformed into electricity.  Sheltered by them, 24 beds house pumpkin, lettuce and tomato crops, which benefit from protective shade, and rainwater and night dew caught by the panels.

This takes place in the Sustainable and Educational Agrovoltaic Plot (Pase), located in a corner of the Center for Practical Teaching and Research in Animal Production and Health of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Science of the public National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).

The centre is located in San Miguel Topilejo, a town in the municipality of Tlalpan, in the south of Mexico City.

At the facility visited by IPS, on the other side of a dirt road, stalled cattle graze while the photovoltaic system waits for the overcast skies to open up and bathe them in the sun’s nourishing rays.

On one side of the plot there are six more open-air beds to compare the results with those protected by the panels.

During an earlier tour of the facility, Aarón Sánchez, an academic at the Unam’s Institute of Renewable Energies and coordinator of the plot, explained that they are studying how crops develop under a photovoltaic roof that generates electricity.

He explained that they analyse their performance when there is a transpiration process in the lower part of the crops themselves, and the modules work at a lower temperature and higher efficiency.

Inaugurated in 2023, the Pase aims to increase the quality and quantity of agricultural products, generate green energy, reduce water consumption, and socialise new technologies among farmers.

The plot, which has a rainwater harvesting system with a 145 cubic metre tank to feed the drip irrigation system and temperature and humidity sensors, also involves the Mexico City government’s Ministry of Education, Science, Technology and Innovation.

An international consortium of institutions from the United States, France, Israel, Kenya, Morocco and Mexico is also participating.

Back in Sonora, Molina and Peón called for more support to expand the systems.

“We can ask for more support, because some families in the community have not had access to the agrovoltaic garden. Hopefully the project can be continued”, the community photovoltaic expert said.

Peón believes the results are promising, but much remains to be done.

“We hope that there will be a federal programme to support indigenous peoples. There has to be a change in the rules of the game (for people to generate their own energy in greater volumes),” he said.

“There needs to be synergy between the energy and agricultural sectors, so that we can see large-scale projects”, he added.

One of the 31 wind parks operating in Mexico. By 2020 installed wind power capacity should have climbed to 15,000 MW. Credit: Courtesy of Dforcesolar

By Diego Arguedas Ortiz
SAN JOSE, Aug 12 2015 (IPS)

Latin America is facing a two-pronged challenge: double power generation by 2050 while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The only solution? Green energy.

Studies show that these two goals could be within the reach of Latin America, because this region still has huge untapped potential in terms of renewable energy.

Along with transportation and land-use change, electricity generation is one of the region’s unresolved challenges in the fight against climate change.

With regard to energy production, Latin America is the planet’s greenest region, due to its long-time emphasis on hydroelectricity. But the question now is how to keep increasing the proportion of renewable energies in the face of growing domestic demand. “When you look at it as a whole, the region’s infrastructure continues to be built like in the 20th century, even though the 21st century has a completely different outlook and requirements.” --- Joseluis Samaniego

“When you look at it as a whole, the region’s infrastructure continues to be built like in the 20th century, even though the 21st century has a completely different outlook and requirements,” Joseluis Samaniego, a Mexican expert who is the director of the Sustainable Development and Human Settlements Division of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), told IPS.

Electricity is key to the design of the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) – the commitments that each nation assumes to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions.

According to the Inter-American Development Bank study “Rethinking Our Energy Future”, the region will need to increase its installed power capacity two-fold by 2050.
However, it remains dependent on fossil fuels like oil, coal and natural gas which generate greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming.

This raises the question of what kind of infrastructure Latin America will include in its energy future. According to the IDB study, Latin America’s renewable energy generation capacity – wind, solar, hydropower, geothermal and biomass – is so extensive that only four percent of the total technical potential would be needed to meet the region’s needs by 2050.

But in recent years, the region has invested in dirtier energy sources. Although hydroelectric plants have been the main source of electricity across much of Latin America for decades, the latest figures show that its share is shrinking.

The Itaipú hydropower dam shared by Brazil and Paraguay is the second-largest in the world, after China’s Three Gorges. Credit: Mario Osava/IPS

The Latin American Energy Organisation (OLADE) reported that it represented just 38 percent in 2013, surpassed by natural gas, which now provides 40 percent.

The countries of Latin America will have to revert that process if they want to set forth more ambitious and realistic targets in their INDCs. Only a robust energy policy will make it possible to set adequate goals, experts agree.

So far, only Mexico has formally presented its INDCs, while Chile, Colombia and Peru have shown progress.

All countries must present their national commitments by Oct. 1, to be incorporated in the new binding universal treaty to be approved at the December climate summit in Paris.

“Latin America, like the rest of the world, should focus on developing electric power infrastructure with renewable sources and with the least possible environmental impact, in an attempt to depend less and less on fossil fuels,” Santiago Ortega, a Colombian engineer who specialises in renewable energy sources, told IPS.

Ortega, who is also a professor at the Engineering School in the northwest Colombian region of Antioquia, called for a balance in renewable energy generation between local, less-invasive projects and megaprojects like large dams that make it possible to store up energy, providing a reliable supply.

“Financial resources will always be scarce, and they must be invested in the most intelligent way possible,” said Ortega.

Otherwise, the global energy future will be costly. With a business-as-usual high-carbon economy, about 90 trillion dollars, or an average of six trillion a year, will be invested in infrastructure in the world’s cities, agriculture and energy systems over the next 15 years, according to the New Climate Economy report “Better Growth, Better Climate”.

But the report adds that only around 270 billion dollars a year would be needed to accelerate the global transition to a low-carbon economy, through clean energy, more compact cities, better public transport systems and smarter land use.

Experts like Costa Rican economist Mónica Araya say “the shift that is happening around the world, and we won’t be an exception, is towards energy diversification and decentralisation.”

But electricity is only part of the region’s energy mix, where fossil fuels still reign supreme.

OLADE figures from 2013 indicate that oil represents 49 percent of primary energy in the region, natural gas 26 percent, and coal seven percent.

Only six percent of primary energy comes from hydropower. Biomass, nuclear and other renewable sources complete the picture.

What does Latin America do with 80 percent fossil fuels, if the electricity supply is largely green?

According to Pablo Bertinat, director of the Observatory of Energy and Sustainability at the National Technological University in Argentina, nearly half of that energy goes to the transport sector.

“In transport, infrastructure is key,” Bertinat told IPS. “A large part of the public monies in the region goes into infrastructure works largely aimed at consolidating energy-intensive modes of transportation.”

As an example, Bertinat pointed out that while 75 percent of cargo in Argentina is moved by truck, the proportion is just 20 percent in France or the United States, which put a priority on rivers or railways.

Changes are also needed in cities, and Araya calls for modern, clean collective public transport, with electrification of private fleets of taxis or cargo vehicles.

“We lack imagination,” Araya, who heads the Costa Rican think tank Nivela, told IPS. “Neither the political class nor the business community have woken up to the need to invest in clean, modern public transit and cargo transport.”

These efforts in the energy industry will also require proposals from other fields. The main regional sources of greenhouse gases are land use and forestry (47 percent), followed by the energy industry (22 percent), agriculture (20 percent), and garbage (three percent).

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

St. Kitts (pictured here) and its northern neighbour Jamaica are increasing their energy efficiency with solar streetlights. Credit: Desmond Brown/IPS

By Peter Richards
BELMOPAN, Belize, Aug 23 2013 (IPS)

Every year, the Caribbean’s electric sector burns through approximately 30 million barrels of fuel. Overall, the region imports in excess of 170 million barrels of petroleum products annually.

Dr. Al Binger, technical coordinator for the recently launched multi-million-dollar Energy for Sustainable Development (ESD) in Caribbean Buildings Project, said that the region must now focus on ways to reduce the amount of fuel used to generate electricity, and in the process save millions of dollars.

He told IPS that building modifications, such as replacing windows and doors, installing solar water heaters and other retrofitting activities, are among the major components of the EDS project, which he hopes will eventually be embraced by all 15 members of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).

“Improving the efficiency of energy use in the building sector is a project priority. We’re looking for a 10 to 15-percent improvement across the whole electricity sector in this pilot project, which means we could save the equivalent of about 400,000 dollars per year for the pilot project [in five countries]. So you see, energy efficiency pays back quickly. It’s a good investment,” he told IPS.

Belize will be the first to begin implementation of the ESD project, which seeks to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent in the near term and increase the use of renewable energy.

Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, St. Lucia, and Trinidad and Tobago are next in line to participate in the four-year, 12.4-million-dollar project that was launched by the Belize-based Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre (CCCCC) this week.

“The participating countries expressed interest in collaborating, which is exceptional as countries usually do these activities individually,” said the CCCCC in a release, noting that each country will establish a national steering committee, a project manager and an executing agency.

The centre says the EDS project will do a range of things to support the Implementation Plan, the landmark policy document that guides the Caribbean’s climate change response. This includes boosting capacity to perform audits, introducing new building codes, labelling appliances as energy-savers, and creating best practices for how the private sector can reduce its energy consumption.

A major focus is resilience, and helping economies adapt to new weather conditions.

Binger noted that Jamaica, for example, had to give up its banana industry after 100 years because it became unsustainable due in part to climatic changes.

“Jamaica built an entire railroad just to grow banana… So the Implementation Plan is about the economy of tomorrow, what will it look like, and that starts with the energy sector,” he said.

Earlier this month, the architect Brian Bernal, addressing a workshop hosted by the Jamaica Institute of Architects in association with the Caribbean Architecture Students Association of the University of Technology (UTECH), said that overhauling the island’s energy use profile would not be enough to protect it from rising sea levels, increased air temperature and more intense storms and hurricanes.

He argued that the effort has to be coupled with a deliberate move to ensure that buildings can withstand the anticipated shocks.

“We need to change the way we use energy resources to reduce our CO2 emissions, while simultaneously increasing our ability to resist the effects of climate change,” Bernal said.

“Robust and enforced building codes are highly effective in ensuring a better quality of building and when employed in conjunction with green building standards or practices will significantly increase the functional resilience of our buildings,” said Bernal, whose company serves as the lead consultant of the multi-disciplinary team for the “Build Better Jamaica — Developing Design Concepts for Climate Change Resilient Buildings project”.

That project is sponsored by the Inter-American Development Bank and the Institute of Sustainable Development and is aimed at helping Caribbean countries prepare for climate change, particularly in the design and construction of buildings that are more resilient to disasters, but which do not compromise the natural environment.

The CCCCC said that the main aims of the ESD project, the “first regional project of its kind in CARICOM”, are to increase the number of successful commercial applications of energy efficiency and conservation in buildings as well as expand the market for renewable energy technology applications for power generation.

“We will be primarily using photovoltaics, [and] some wind energy to a lesser extent,” said Binger.

At a 2010 Caribbean conference, the Climate Studies Group at the Mona campus of the University of the West Indies (UWI) in Jamaica, noted that small-scale wind for domestic use offers an advantage over total reliance on grid-supplied electricity if net metering is allowed and also for standalone systems where the wind is fairly consistent.