Reflections on Project Development at EcoSwell

I have been home for a few days now, after spending about a month in Lobitos. I have had time to reflect on my experience volunteering at EcoSwell, and I think one of the most important things I learned is that there are two main ways to create change. The first is to design a project with a lot of thought, start it, and invest a lot of time and resources into its maintenance, so that it succeeds. The second is to start many projects and hope that one of them takes off without any sort of maintenance. My understanding of many NGOs in developing countries is that they tend to do more of the second way of making change. They often start projects, when volunteers come, and discontinue them, once the volunteers leave. This poses a problem because many of the projects that foreign volunteers start don’t get completed, or break down without continued maintenance.

EcoSwell does things a little differently. In my experience, EcoSwell’s focus is on the maintenance and sustainability of existing projects. Although some volunteers do initiate new projects, the vast majority of volunteers spend their time sustaining projects that currently exist. The sustainability involves regular upkeep, reflection, and redesign. This allows for lasting impact in the Lobitos community and is one of the reasons I think EcoSwell has accomplished so much.

As a volunteer at EcoSwell, I had the opportunity to contribute to the upkeep, reflection, and redesign of a solar energy project that started a few years ago. The project was started at the fishermen’s guild and involved the installation of 2 solar panels, 4 batteries to store the solar energy, and an inverter to convert the energy from the panels to the batteries. Although initially, the project was a success, over time the system degraded and has become less and less useful to the fishermen. There were three main issues prevalent with the solar panel system when I arrived in Lobitos.

First, the capacity of the batteries has gotten so small that they are bare of use to the fishermen anymore. Second, the fishermen are using the solar energy primarily at night, putting further stress on the battery, instead of utilizing the energy during the day, when the energy conversion from the panels is most efficient. Third, the solar panels were in dire need of a cleaning. When the panels get dusty, less solar energy reaches the panels, meaning there is less usable solar energy at the fishermen’s guild.

The first issue required significant reflection by the EcoSwell team. The batteries had degraded much faster than they should have, which was likely because, at some point, the inverter was reconfigured by the fisherman in such a way that put far more stress on the batteries than they could handle. Now the batteries need to be replaced, but is there any point in replacing them if in a year or two they will once again be deteriorated? I think everyone at the EcoSwell house agreed that the fishermen first needed to be educated on how to use the batteries properly before the batteries could be replaced.

This is where I came in. I helped redesign this project by creating communication graphics and organizing a meeting with some of the fisherman to explain the problems that have occurred with the use of their solar energy, and what they can do going forward. By passing on this knowledge to the fishermen, now they have more responsibility for the solar power system, and hopefully, EcoSwell will have to do less maintenance in the future. With the help of another volunteer, Christian Luyo, I also reconfigured the inverter so that it would have less stress on the battery, and explained to the fishermen that they should keep it in this configuration for a longer battery life.

The second issue is a bit more complicated, and will likely need a lot more work from the EcoSwell team. Again this issue requires a significant amount of reflection, because there is a lot of solar energy that is being wasted, and if done differently, it could be used. The fishermen’s guild is probably not the best place for solar energy because the energy use is primarily at night. This means we need to redesign the project and move the solar panels somewhere that would be more useful during the day, like the fishermen’s pier, where the energy can be used for things like boat maintenance. EcoSwell and the Fishermen’s Association have wanted to move the solar panels to the pier for some time, but given the political situation, they were concerned that the panels might be removed. However, there is hope that in the future, the Fishermen’s Association will regain control of the pier and at that time we will be prepared to move the panels.

In the meantime, another redesign of this project has taken shape. Several EcoSwell volunteers have worked on building a solar distiller, which would take advantage of the wasted solar energy during the day. The distiller could change seawater into clean drinking water for the fishermen and Lobitos community, by using both the sun’s energy and a heater powered by the solar panels. Initially, the plan is to set up the distiller at the fishermen’s guild, but if and when the solar panels get moved to the pier, this distiller could be moved with them, which would make the transport of seawater to the distiller much easier.

The third and final issue that was identified with the solar power system is probably the simplest to solve, yet also one of the most important. As part of the regular upkeep of the panels, they need to be cleaned to ensure that all incoming solar radiation reaches the panels and isn’t blocked by the dust. Ideally in the future, I think this task should be passed off to the Fishermen’s Association, but for now, it is the responsibility of the volunteers at EcoSwell. I cleaned the panels when I arrived in Lobitos, and they looked fairly clean when I left, so hopefully they will stay clean for another month or two so that less energy is wasted.

So, you can imagine how different the solar energy project would have turned out without the regular upkeep, reflection and redesign that keep this project sustained.

I am proud to have had the opportunity to be apart of this process, and believe that the impact I had helping sustain a current project was far greater than the impact I would have had starting a new project that may or may not continue. I think the meeting I had with the fishermen was a success, and hopefully the work I did to help educate the fisherman on their solar energy use will ensure that they treat the solar energy system with care, and that it is sustained long into the future. I also feel confident that the EcoSwell team, and their partners, will continue to improve the solar energy project and build off the work I have done.