Blowing in the Wind

WindAid industrial workshop, Trujillo, Peru
Photo by: Josh Getz

I celebrated the New Year on an overnight flight from Atlanta, Georgia to Lima, Peru.   A few months prior, I had decided that I would grab hold of 2017 by taking further steps towards my goal of bringing electricity to people globally. Having made this commitment, I was fortuitously introduced to WindAid Institute by a colleague in the Women Of Wind Energy association.   Excited to immerse myself in a new culture and to gain hands-on experience manufacturing and installing small wind turbines, I allowed myself to be blown in the wind.

Lima, Peru was my first stop on the way to Trujillo—the headquarters of WindAid. WindAid is an American non-governmental organization (NGO) operating in Peru, that provides wind electricity  to rural communities. As I got off the plane, I was stunned to see just how small the compact taxi cabs were; most times fitting 5-6 people when they should seat 3 passengers comfortably. I was resigned to putting away my developed world privileges.

Buenos Aires Beach - 40ft blockade

Energy access in Peru 

Peru ranks second-to-last in the number of people with access to energy in the Latin American & Caribbean (LAC) region; right above Haiti. Sixty-seven percent of the rural Peruvian population live without access to electricity. This means that roughly 4.6 million Peruvians are living in the dark, which is twice the size of Brooklyn, NY's population. Additionally, Peru is facing fast-paced environmental degradation on its Pacific coast as a result of climate change. See a 2017 image and link to a 2014 video of the damage to Buenos Aires beach below.  It is evident that microgrid and decentralized solutions such as; small wind turbines, will be the best pathway moving forward.

Studies from Peru’s National Meteorological and Hydrological Service have estimated a total wind power potential of 19 GWh/year for Peru. This energy can be captured with a mix of utility and small scale renewables. Currently, Argentina is at the top of the heap of LAC countries, with 279MW installed wind power capacity compared to Peru's 148MW.

Project Overview

For the majority of my time with WindAid, I worked on a project with the goal of delivering reliable wind energy to the Playa Blanca community—a fishing village on the northern coast of Peru. There, I not only polished-up my Spanish, but I also became proficient in the steps necessary to make small wind energy generation a reality.  From building the blades from scratch to installing two complete systems, each part of the process challenged my resourcefulness and allowed me to gain new skills. With some jitters at first, I learned how to solder, weld, lay bricks, mix concrete, wire a house and much more. I participated in each of the processes in the diagram below, each system producing 2-3kW of power for a family's household and micro-business uses.

Project processes

Workshop & Installation

Inside the workshop is where I felt the most exhilarated, jamming to my colleague’s iTunes playlist all day while we worked.  Though I burned my fingers with hot silicone glue several times, the workshop is where I was also able to apply airfoil design and material strength concepts learned in undergrad.

I spent my time fabricating the blades using foam, fiberglass & carbon fiber (mom’s sewing lessons paying off now); casting the rotors with magnetic bars; coiling 12 gauge copper wire for the stators that were only perfect when we were able to get them under the 450g threshold; welding the upper portion of the tubular tower and the steel reinforcements for twelve other towers that had been installed; testing the blade for imbalances (adding pieces of lead to ensure that the blade was not heavier on one side). This ensured that the blade would spin only in one direction when exposed to the rotational forces of the wind and extract the velocity from the wind to generate maximum power.

Adding the carbon fiber layer

I spent week no.4 in Playa Blanca, installing turbines for two families, repairing an old turbine and adding 12 supports to turbines that were previously installed.

Lessons Learned
I learned key lessons about making and installing turbines for rural communities in those moments when everything did not go smoothly and when ingenuity became the mother of learning. For example:

Bobbin mechanism with metal plate connector

- Days after having made a stator (my mini project) my hands were terribly sore from making coils for 3 consecutive days, but it was worth the pain, since the stator will be used to test configurations that could increase power outputs of future turbines

- Resin solution for one blade did not dry because we forgot to add the peroxide catalyst to the mixture

- My teammate and I broke the bobbin mechanism while coiling copper, so we made a solution - a metal plate connector

- The magnets for one rotor mysteriously depolarize so we had to duplicate the process to make another

- In mixing the concrete, we used a circular cardboard cut-out to prevent leakage from the bucket that we were using to sift large stones out of sand

- We used a discarded rope to start a generator when we needed to power construction tools

- We reinforced new turbine foundations with a steel lattice, after learning that in a previous install, a eucalyptus tower had fallen because of termite damage

- The young girls (8-12 year old) in the community were especially curious about my Locs - asking questions such as: "¿Es tu cabello natural?".  Living in the bubble of New York, I didnt realized that I would need to explain my hair style or texture

- When we returned from rural Playa Blanca to urban Trujillo in week 3, I fell prey to a bit of homesickness for the first time as an adult, so I visited familiar grounds (Starbucks) after dinner for a week

Team & Culture

La Marinera y Caballos de Paso Peru

I had great fun working and living with people from Hungary, New Zealand, South Africa, Ireland, Wales, Trinidad & Tobago, United States of America and Peru. We discovered Peruvian food, swam in the Pacific Ocean, learned to dance Salsa and attended cultural shows together, such as the La Marinera y El Caballos de Paso Peru. I especially found Peruvians to be friendly and willing to try communicating with us despite their limited English. Not only did we build and install the wind turbines, but we built cultural bridges and formed new friendships.

I closed my journey with some relaxing activities, soaking-in the Afro-Peruvian culture as well hiking to Machu Picchu. Traveling across Peru helped me to have an appreciation for the broad human connection all around the world. I packed several life experiences in just five weeks and I am very grateful to have had the chance to make a difference, "lighting up lives" with the team at WindAid Institute.

Team & Community leaders

Special thanks to my sister Rashida, Pauline Searles and Kristen Graf for your support.

Footage available on the VIDEO section of this blog

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