“WE PROVIDE ACCESS TO ELECTRICITY TO THE PANAMANIAN MOST ISOLATED AND UNDERSERVED POPULATION”
We brought our Luz en Casa programme to Panama to offer a sustainable solution of access to electricity to isolated rural communities -preferably located in indigenous regions- having no prospects of conventional electrification (with grid connection).
With this aim, we joined the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (so called AECID) that works since several years ago in the operation area with other projects. This public-private partnership for development brings the necessary technical, managerial, economic and institucional resources to execute the actions.
The Luz en Casa Ngäbe-Buglé Programme provides access to a basic electricity service with off-grid renewable sources: third generation solar home systems, which are very efficient, have a plug&play architecture, no pollutant pieces and meet the user energy demand, as well as they are easily transportable due to compacity and low weight; they are a modern and safe solution for very remote households.
Thus we provide indigenous families with access to electricity in the Ngäbe-Buglé region, making possible savings on their expenditure in lighting and communication (candles, batteries, mobile charging...), as well as making available more hours for their educative, productive or domestic tasks. These are the estimated annual impacts of access to electricity for the current 400 beneficiary families:
-
358,720 h/yearFor additional activities at home
-
68,295 h/yearFor doing additional homework
-
12,000 balboa/yearSavings in energy expenditure (10.565€)
-
2.63 t/year batterynon-controlled disposal avoided
-
42 t/year CO2emissions avoided
HOUSEHOLDS WITH ELECTRICITY
TOTAL USERS
H/YEAR AVAILABLE LIGHTING
ORIGINS OF THE LUZ EN CASA NGÄBE-BUGLÉ PROGRAMME
- ACCIONA, working in Panama since 2013, detected the lack of access to basic services in the most isolated rural areas of the country.
- As a complement to its business activity, through which is not possible to reach those populations in the last mile, it involved us as we are its corporate foundation to bring our reliable, sustainable and affordable solutions to those communities.
- After the first analysises, we decided to start by adapting and implementing our access-to-electricity service delivery model in the Ngäbe-Buglé indigenous region, because it is the most underdeveloped one and has the largest lack of access to services in Panama.
- In addition, the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (so called AECID), which is our partner in projects in other countries, already worked in that region so it could provide us with its knowledge and, as it implements projects of access to water & sanitation, sinergies might be developed between us.
LUZ EN CASA NGÄBE-BUGLÉ PROJECTS
LUZ EN CASA NGÄBE-BUGLÉ PILOT
The Luz en Casa Ngäbe-Buglé pilot -the first acciona.org project in Panama- has brought access to electricity to 400 households in indigenous rural communities in the Ngäbe-Buglé region. We had the approval from the Ngäbe-Buglé Indigenous Council, as well as we coordinate with the Rural Electrification Bureau of Panama, for this action.LUZ EN CASA NGÄBE-BUGLÉ 2019
The first escalation phase of Luz en Casa Ngäbe-Buglé is going to reach 850 additional families to improve their education, economy, environment…LATEST NEWS
Marta, the first acciona.org volunteer in Panama: “I’ve enjoyed and learnt a lot”
09/26/2019 Luz en Casa Ngabe BugleMarta Serrano Manero, working at the ACCIONA’s Innovation Directorate, tells us about her firsthand experience collaborating with the Luz en Casa programme in the Ngäbe-Buglé indigenous region (Panama).