Transition Areas
Fair Energetics
- Alternative energy supply
- Changing patterns of use and consumption
- Energy access for local communities
The community turbines in Guatemala were born from organized communities that fled to the mountains due to the armed conflict in the 1980s and upon their return were located in isolated territories in the mountains of the municipality of Uspantán.
When they were abandoned by the government, they received support from the international community, which, after a participatory diagnosis, decided to build a community energy project. The first initiative was developed with many difficulties because it was opposed to the corporate hydroelectric model that dispossesses communities of their territories and natural assets, the idea of the community light spread to other communities and managed to articulate more than 60 communities seeking to benefit and build a community light project, which they managed to develop thanks to the accompaniment of the Madreselvae Ecological Collective, in the development of the experience also carried out programs to protect community forests and implemented agroecological practices for planting.
The indigenous communities of Zona Reina belong to different ethnic groups of the Mayan people, being Ixiles, K’iche and Q’eqchi, dominant peoples who work collectively promoting community energy as an alternative way of life that is not limited to access to electricity service, but bets on a political proposal of community autonomy.
The community turbines installed have resulted in the accumulation of social capital, which has been used for the benefit of the community. The fees are affordable and are managed by the authorities elected in each project by the general assembly in which all the users of the service participate.
Technical support for the projects is provided by trained groups of young people who maintain the electrical grid and other components of the community turbines. By 2020 they were solving technical and infrastructure problems.
The Madreselva collective continues with the technical and social advice to 4 developed projects; and accompanies the rest of the communities that are organizing themselves to establish new projects of Community Light. The idea of the Community Light in Zona Reina is the ongoing proposal of alternatives to combat an extractivist, racist and hegemonic model, which promises to transform the lives of thousands of families, women, men and youth, providing autonomy and a dignified life.
Technical characteristics of the proposal
4 community turbines operating, supplying 9 communities with a production of 216 Kw, benefiting 1,250 indigenous families.
By 2020 there were two more projects under construction with an estimated potential of 100kw benefiting 9 more communities, which are located on 6 different rivers and take between 20 and 30% of the flow of each.
Productive, community, environmental, or economic processes or activities that were positively impacted by the implementation of the community experience of TEJ.
The community turbine projects motivate the communities to conserve their forests, as this is part of the sustainability of the project due to the importance of the forests in supplying water to the rivers. For this reason, the Madreselva Collective promotes community forest management projects and, together with local authorities, promotes the installation of community turbines, which are linked to agroecology proposals and the production of ecological products.
Beneficiaries of the experience
1,240 families
Achievements and problems encountered during implementation
ACHIEVEMENTS:
1. Development of a clean energy community project, managed and built by indigenous communities.
2. Building community social capital
Forest conservation from the perspective of indigenous peoples in response to a racist, predatory and extractivist energy model.
PROBLEMS:
- The financing of new projects of communitarian Light are very complex to achieve, the Madreselva collective has approximately 80 applications from 80 communities that want to start on the path of communitarian Light.
Women’s participation in the TEJ community experience
The indigenous women of the Luz comunitaria initiative have a broad participation in collective decision-making.
Impact of the community experience of TEJ on public policy
Participation in national roundtables with communities on “energy justice”, which seek to articulate more processes on the energy issue. From the space, we are working on an appeal to the Constitutional Court of Guatemala against the Energy Law, which is contrary to the Constitution and violates different fundamental rights of the population.
More information
colectivomadreselva2@gmail.com