El gran viaje patagónico

Today I begin my seven week journey through Patagonia to continue my case study research into the electrification of rural areas with small wind turbines.

Why Patagonia? The map bellow answers this question perfectly – the wind resource is simply incredible. After seeing so many small wind turbines installed in places that simply don’t have enough wind in other parts of the world, I really want to see what factors influence the viability of the technology in a place where the wind resource is not in question.

Here are some of the things I’ll be up to over the next seven weeks:

6^th-8^th August – Los Gigantes, Córdoba, Argentina. During my previous visit to Patagonia in May, we installed an Arduino-based logger at the Los Gigantes rural school, at the same time as a 2.4m Piggott turbine. The logger is currently recording to an SD card, but we will be upgrading it to send data wirelessly over the internet. We decided to mount the anemometer and wind vane on the taller tower of the wind turbine that was already installed here, however this tower decided to fall down a few weeks ago. So, along with the upgrade, we’ll also be picking up the pieces of the sensors.

9^th-23^rd August – The Falkland Islands, also known as Las Malvinas. Although the environmental conditions are very similar to much of Southern Patagonia, the war between Argentina and the UK in the 1980s created a political barrier between the islands and the rest of the continent, meaning that the social and political factors that enable and constrain the development of small wind power are very different here than on the mainland.

24^th-27^th August – UNPA, Argentina and UMAG, Chile. Two of the most active universities in the development of small scale wind power in Southern Patagonia.

29^th August – 3^rd Sept (TBC) – Cerro Gorro Frigio, Chubut, Argentina. A rural community with links to EWB/ISF (Engineers Without Borders/Ingeniería Sin Fronteras) Patagonia. Small wind turbines were installed here by a government programme, but have since fallen into disrepair.

4^th-6^th Sept (TBC) – CREE (Regional Centre for Wind Power), Rawson, Chubut, Argentina. CREE has been instrumental in the establishement of wind power a key player in the installation of over 1,500 small wind turbines in the Argentinian province of Chubut.

7^th-13^th September – Cholila, Chubut, Argentina. Wind Empowerment members, 500rpm, will be running a participatory wind turbine construction course at a rural school set up by the foundation Cruzada Patagonica. The school was set up to provide education to the children of the sheep farmers who live out in the desert to the East of the Andes. Many of the sheep farmers already have small wind turbines installed at their homes by a government programme, however the vast majority are out of service as access to maintenance services is simply not available in many places. 500rpm hope that this course will help the pupils understand the technology better, so that they can fix simple failures themselves and ultimately build replacements using the Piggott design, which offers users the opportunity to perform almost all maintenance themselves.

14^th-21^st September – Bariloche, Rio Negro, Argentina. 500rpm are running a follow-up to their extremely popular theory/practical course at the National Parks HQ. During my previous visit to Patagonia, we installed a 2.4m Piggott turbine and during this week, we will install a prototype Arduino based datalogger to measure its performance. There is the potential of installing further turbines at park ranger cabins in National Parks across Argentina, as well as the homes of the people living within the National Park boundaries, many of whom are from the Mapuche first nation and either live without electricity or occasionally make use of a petrol/diesel generator when funds are available for fuel.

22^nd-26^th September – Buenos Aires, Argentina. Interviews with wind power experts and running a session on establishing infrastructure for maintenance services in the National Industrial Technology Institute’s (INTI) annual small wind manufacturers’ workshop (TBC).