- Photovoltaic Plant: The Luis Felipe de las Casas Grieve High School will be able to cover more than 50% of its electricity consumption with clean energy and meet its decarbonization goals
- Collaboration: ACCIONA Energía has provided institutional, technical and financial support for the project
ACCIONA’s corporate foundation, acciona.org, has installed a photovoltaic solar plant at the Luis Felipe de las Casas Grieve Secondary Education Institute in San Juan de Marcona (Peru), which will provide the school with access to clean and reliable electricity for its academic activities.
As of September 2021, this educational center will have advanced laboratory equipment and machinery to teach the careers of Automotive Mechanics, Industrial Production Mechanics, Platform Architecture and Information Technology Services and Technical Nursing.
Until now, the equipment could not be used to its full capacity due to deficiencies in the power supply of the local distribution network. In response to this problem, acciona.org conducted electricity consumption studies and developed a solution to provide the center with a stable supply of energy from renewable sources.
By installing a photovoltaic plant, the institute will be able to cover more than 50% of its energy needs. In addition, the renewables project will ensure the operation of critical facilities in the event of a power grid failure, such as drinking water supply, as well as data center and security systems, among others.
The solution developed by acciona.org involves installing a 106kWp photovoltaic plant, made up of 252 solar panels, and two battery systems for backup. The system will supply more than 50% of the school's electricity demand.
In addition, the execution of the project will help the school, the largest in the Ica region and the second best-equipped of its kind in Peru, to obtain licensing for the Industrial Mechanics program.
Aldo Donayre, director of the campus licensed by the Ministry of Education (MINEDU), explained that thanks to this project the establishment will have a more efficient, cleaner and alternative electricity supply to the public grid, which will allow it to reduce its carbon footprint by accessing energy from renewable sources and thus achieve its sustainability goals in advance, while guaranteeing students' access to critical services. “We thank ACCIONA Energía and acciona.org who, seeing the institute's need for electricity, brought us this project that is already a reality and is benefiting our students, academics and the community in general,” he said.
Jessica Olivares, manager of acciona.org in Peru, said: “We are very pleased to contribute to the development of an educational center of this level, which receives young people in vulnerable situations in the city of Marcona and other parts of the country. The solution we have implemented will not only provide electricity supply for the normal operation of the institute, but it is also a clean, renewable and environmentally responsible solution that is aligned with the SDG of providing affordable and non-polluting energy.”
To implement the project, acciona.org had the institutional, technical and economic support of ACCIONA Energía, which built and operates the nearby San Juan de Marcona wind farm to produce energy equivalent to the electricity supply of 478,000 Peruvian homes with 135.7MW of installed capacity.
ONGOING COOPERATION
acciona.org has been present in Peru since 2009, mainly focused on developing its rural electrification initiative Light at Home, which is now in its 15th year and has benefited more than 52,000 people in more than 11,000 homes in the country.
acciona.org supplies residential photovoltaic systems and is responsible for both the maintenance of the installed systems to guarantee their operation, through supply and service centers managed by locals, and for the replacement of components when they reach the end of their service life, to ensure that performance remains adequate over time. acciona.org offers an electricity service that involves rights and obligations and is regulated.
This service model is based on collaborative work with the communities it serves in the regions of Cajamarca, Amazonas, Loreto and Cusco. It is basically a matter of establishing a relationship of trust and generating a culture of service in homes where it has never existed due to their isolation.
The Light at Home program by acciona.org Peru is a pioneering and successful initiative that provides a solution to the lack of access to electricity in the country and has been replicated in remote environments in other countries such as Mexico, Panama, Chile, the Philippines and Ethiopia so far.