Current Projects

• Candelaria Solar Water Pump
• Chel Micro Hydroelectric Project
• Chirinos Solar and Pico Hydro Project
• Cochrane High School Sustainable Development Project
• Dalit LED Project
• Galapagos Solar Project
• Karen Solar Project
• Potreritos Solar Water Pump Project
• Shuar Solar Project
• Shuar Solar Project 2

Past Projects

• El Bote Project
• Humla Pico Project
• Long Lewan Micro-Hydro Project
• Mini-Hydroelectric Plant
• Pelly Crossing Electrification Project
• Polocon Micro-Hydro Power Project
• Renewable Engery Education Project
• Saloy Micro-Hydro Project

Karen Solar Project

In December of 2004, the EnerGreen Foundation entered into a partnership with Green Empowerment and five other non profit organizations to work with the Karen people on village electrification in three constituencies: the Karen internally displaced people within Burma, Karen villagers who are Thai citizens and live within Thailand, and Karen refugees in refugee camps within Thailand. The project will address the energy needs of the Karen people through two initial phases commencing February 2005.

The first phase will be the training of Karen medics and providing customized solar systems for all the clinics within stabilized areas of the internally displaced Karen people within Burma. At the February training, the medics from the 5 clinics will be given complete, specially-designed solar systems and will learn to install, operate and maintain the systems at their clinics. The solar electricity can be used for light for night-time operations, microscopes, laptops and other equipment. Other Karen technician trainees from the Karen Villagers and Karen Refugee groups would be involved with these trainings.

The second phase of the February training will be in the Karen villages in Thailand. There has been an explosion of solar electrification activity sponsored by the Thai government. This activity has basically been divided into three governmental efforts:

1. solar home systems, which anticipates 290,000 home systems installed in remote non-electrified villages in the north. Many of these systems are already broken due to lack of user-training (30% in one village surveyed)
2. Battery Charging Systems (BCS), which, according to anecdotal evidence, have almost a 100% failure rate; and
3. the Princess systems, which are a combination of village community solar systems with satellite TV technology, where again there is almost 100% failure.

To emphasize the magnitude of this effort, 290,000 solar home systems at $2,000 each would cost almost 600 million dollars in equipment alone.

Our challenge is to train a core group of Karen technicians, who can in turn train the villagers how to maintain, repair, and preserve their systems. The goal is to turn a potential massive renewable energy failure into a success and build a support system from the bottom up, instead of top down, by empowering the people involved.

Refugees living in the refugee camps along the Thai/Burmese border will also be included to provide them with skills that they need now and/or will need when they have the opportunity to return to Burma and start the re-building process. The Project Team will work in coordination with ZOA, the leading vocational training organization in the refugee camps.

Project Cost: $43,983 (US) - EnerGreen Foundation Contribution: $5,000 (US)

Background on the Karen (Courtesy Green Empowerment)
The Eastern area of Burma (often referred to as Myanmar) along the border with Thailand is a zone that has been under siege for the past several decades. The Burmese military have been constantly oppressing the indigenous peoples of this area, burning villages and crops, forcing men and women into slavery, raping, and killing.

In the past, it was possible to escape to refugee camps within the Thai border, and currently there is a string of refugee camps along the border with Thailand, the largest of which houses 45,000 people. However, political developments between Burma and Thailand have made it increasingly difficult to come to Thailand. Consequently, about 1 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) live in hiding surrounded by landmines without health care and permanent shelter.

One of the largest of the indigenous groups in this area is the Karen people. They have a population of over 200,000 people on the Burma side of the border.

Due to the nature of their oppression, medical assistance is not supported by any governmental agency, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are not permitted to operate in this zone. Therefore, the resultant structure that has evolved for providing aid to this population is one supported by Karen groups on the Thai side of the border. These groups are the Karen Health and Welfare Department (KHWD) (not part of the government) and the Committee for Internally Displaced Karen People (IDKP) an NGO. The KHWD has, over the years, built up a network of medics and clinics operating inside Burma. They support over 36 clinics with a roster of approximately 75 surgeons, medics, and nurses. The medics treat landmine victims and other casualties of the conflict and grinding oppression. None of the clinics had any electricity until this past August, when a group from the Burma Sustainable Energy Project and Knightsbridge International was able to raise the funds to provide small solar power systems for two of the clinics, along with the training in the proper operation and maintenance of the systems, for the surgeons and operators of these two clinics.