SAN MIGEL TOPILEJO, Mexico, Sep 26 (IPS) – Verónica Molina, an indigenous woman from Comcaac, first encountered solar energy in 2016, when she went to India to train in public photovoltaic services. This later helped him to participate in the installation of the first solar system and family vegetable gardens in his community, Desemboque del Seri, in northern Mexico.
Later, he was invited to the project Energy, Water and Food Security of Indigenous Peoples in the Coastal Regions of Northern Mexico, funded by the National Council for Humanities, Sciences and Technologies (Conahcyt), which started in 2022.
“We grow vegetables, because there are no other seeds we can use. They are for eating. With panels, we pay less to get energy, and with gardens we save money on vegetables,” said a solar activist told IPS from Desemboque del. Seri, about 1,900 kilometers from Mexico City.
In addition to generating their own electricity, participating families harvest a variety of vegetables in neighboring Desemboque and Punta Chueca, Comcaac communities of about 1,200 people on the coast of Sonora state, along with 69 other indigenous Mexicans, who also fish. .
Although the panels cover between 25% and 75% of household consumption, each of the more than 40 gardens provides between 100 and 200 kilograms of vegetables during the two harvests of the year.
The region suffers from discrimination, poverty and disease. Conversely, it receives 5.9 kWh/m2 of solar radiation and 200 milliliters of annual rainfall, making seasonal agriculture difficult.
This system consists of a mixed system that combines photovoltaic generation and food production, located under the panels to use the sun, shade and dew that they catch at night, which is popular in countries such as Germany, Brazil and the United States.
This eco-technology is still in its infancy in Mexico, and it is not known how many programs are active in the country. The Mexican Agrovoltaic Network is preparing a census to determine their status.
In fact, the Climate Change Strategy for the Agri-Food Sector includes among its goals the use of solar panels to generate electricity.
To reduce
“We saw that they have health, economic, food and land problems. We are looking for complete solutions, compatible with the budget. They have the sea or the desert, a very dry place,” Rodolfo Peón told IPS from Hermosillo, the capital of Sonora.
“We saw that farming was another way to improve their food and provide electricity,” added a researcher from the Department of Industrial Engineering at the Public University of Sonora, referring to the project in the Comcáac region.
This is how the agrovoltaic system, the only cheap solution in the area, arrived on the scene.
Funded by Conahcyt’s National Strategic Programs with approximately 450,000 dollars, the project addresses the areas of energy, water, food, health, biodiversity and environmental protection.
As of 2018, the government has been driving, with little success, internal power (sovereignty) to produce food for about 130 million Mexicans.
Mexico is currently ranked 11th in the world in terms of food production. In the first seven months of this year, it sold more agricultural food to foreign countries than in the same period last year, although it also bought more, although the balance of agriculture is surplus.
The country is highly vulnerable to the effects of climate, such as drought, rising temperatures and the spread of pests.
As a result, producers of corn, beans, wheat, coffee and other traditional products are already suffering from conditions such as severe water shortages this year, and will face even more negative impacts in the future, which will have consequences for the quality of life. , income and rural environment.
The second largest economy in Latin America has approximately six million rural production units, of which 75% are less than five hectares in size and only 6% have more than 20 hectares, supporting 20 million people.
Additionally, 79% of electricity generation depends on fossil fuels, followed by wind (7%), photovoltaic (4.5%), hydroelectricity (4.4%) and nuclear (3.7%). According to the Electricity Transition Law, the country must generate 35 percent of its electricity from other sources by 2024, but this is a distant goal.
The administration of outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, which began in December 2018 and will end on October 1, has put the brakes on the energy transition to strengthen the Federal Electricity Commission, which burns gas to generate electricity, and Petróleos Mexicoanos. , thus favoring fossil fuels.
The country has agrovoltaic potential, with 20 million hectares of land and more than 10,000 megawatts of photovoltaic power, 70% of which are in large-scale installations.
Hybrid test
At a height of four meters, six modules of photovoltaic panels capture solar energy that, after passing through the converter, will be converted into electricity. Sheltered by them, the house’s 24 beds of pumpkins, lettuce and tomato plants, benefit from protective shade, and rainwater and night dew are caught by the panels.
This happened in the Sustainable and Educational Agrovoltaic Plot (Pase), which is located in the corner of the Center for Practical Teaching and Research in Animal Production and Health of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Science of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). ).
The center is located in San Miguel Topilejo, a town in the municipality of Tlalpan, south of Mexico City.
At the center visited by IPS, on the other side of a dirt road, cows graze while a photovoltaic system waits for the cloudy skies to clear and bathe in the sun’s nourishing rays.
On the other side of the building there are six open beds to compare the results with those protected by panels.
During an earlier tour of the facility, Aarón Sánchez, an academic from Unam’s Institute of Renewable Energies and coordinator of the facility, explained that they are studying how plants grow under a photovoltaic roof that generates electricity.
He explained that they analyze their performance when there is a transpiration process in the lower part of the plants themselves, and the modules work with low temperature and high performance.
Established in 2023, Pase aims to increase the quality and value of agricultural products, produce green energy, reduce water consumption, and communicate new technologies among farmers.
The building, which has a rainwater harvesting system and a 145 cubic meter tank to feed the drip irrigation system and temperature and humidity sensors, also includes the Ministry of Education, Science, Technology and Innovation of the Mexican government.
An international consortium of institutions from the United States, France, Israel, Kenya, Morocco and Mexico also participated.
Back in Sonora, Molina and Peón asked for more support to expand the systems.
“We can ask for more support, because some families in the community could not access the agrovoltaic garden. I hope the project can continue”, said the community photovoltaic specialist.
Peón believes the results are promising, but there is still more to be done.
“We hope that there will be a government program to support indigenous people. There must be a change in the rules of the game (so that people can produce their own energy in large volumes),” he said.
“There must be cooperation between the energy and agriculture sectors, so that we can see big projects,” he added.
© Inter Press Service (2024) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service
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