Lighting up Lives

Cuba’s only factory producing solar panels is bringing power to remote areas. 

Areas not served by the country’s power grid covers 93 per cent of the island. The solar panels have brought educational television and computer programmes to remote schools. The panels also power equipment in isolated medical posts in mountainous areas and enable them to maintain 24-hour radio contact with regional medical centres, permitting the swift evacuation by helicopter of patients.

The factory equipped an isolated community of some 20 cottages in a mountain area in Western Cuba with solar panels. Further communal electrification is afoot in other remote areas.

Panel production began last December, thanks to a UNDP project, which helped gain access to the new technology at the request of the Cuban government. UNDP financed special equipment and provided technical training.

The success of the project has paved the way for further expansion. They aim to begin domestic production of the photocells and find a market for the solar panels abroad.

Newsfront: www.undp.org