IEEE Spectrum May, 2015 - 43

RuRAL wATTs: An ATDER-BL lineman runs a new line in
the san Ramón valley [top]. ATDER-BL's Abner Talen and
Boanerge Rocha Moreno inspect the El Bote plant [bottom].

"When I came for the first time to El Bote, this was
naked earth. There were no trees," he says, as he hops
into the association's shiny new Toyota Hilux. The
truck dodges puddles and fords streams, and Rocha
points to the roadside, which has been planted with
a yellow-green grass that helps hold the soil. Growing coffee also helps, he says. Although it takes longer to mature than corn or beans, coffee can grow in
the shade of trees that better protect the watershed's
soil. And because coffee sells at higher prices, growers can afford to leave forested patches on their land.
ATDER‑BL has bought about 800 hectares of forest
upstream from the El Bote and Bocay plants and has
overseen the planting of thousands of trees.
"We try to inform people that we have to take care of
the forest, that the water depends on the forest, and
that water is life," Rocha says.

LucAs LAuRsEn (2)

hAT MEssAgE is trickling down to the

farmers, who have embraced it with
varying degrees of enthusiasm. One of
the more passionate is Luís Euxebio
Irías Calderón. He farms in a valley so
steep that horses move faster than motor vehicles, and
he is also the part-time operator of a nearby microhydropower plant. Irías's smile gleams gold as he offers
to sing a song he composed for the plant's recent inauguration in the Valley of the Olivas.

"The song is kind of raw since we don't have a guitar," Irías says,
before belting out the ballad: "The engineer Rosales / Hatched
the plan / To bring the project / To the Valley of the Olivas." Midway through, he gets to "Got to plant trees / All over the range /
So that tomorrow / We aren't unprepared."
The engineer in Irías's song is Félix Rosales, ATDER‑BL's energetic young project manager and Leaf's protégé. Standing nearby,
Rosales smiles as Irías croons. A graduate of the National University of Engineering in Managua, Rosales talks of the powerful
ripples that emanate from electrification projects: The availability of electricity draws skilled workers to the region-high school
teachers, doctors, merchants, all of whom have the disposable
income to pay more for goods and services.
That is what happened in the mountain towns that ATDER‑BL
has helped electrify. No longer places from which parents send
their children away, these towns are growing, and the people,
having endured years of deprivation and violence, are hopeful.
But there is still work to do, Leaf says. Interconnecting
El Cuá's regional power grid to the national grid has posed
technical challenges. "The nearest point for the intertie was a
decrepit rural circuit of Nicaragua's northern utility, Disnorte,
with patched conductor wires and fissured porcelain insulators," Leaf says. The line's unreliable voltage frequently
forces the hydro plants' generators to trip off-line, damaging
the generators' main circuit breakers and the transformers'
power interrupters. At its own expense, ATDER‑BL installed
a supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system
to help manage the problem and get the plants back on line
faster after each trip event.
"For Disnorte, it's just another low-income rural circuit," says
Leaf. "For us, it's fundamental to everything that we're doing."
Meanwhile, in San José de Bocay, the population has been
growing by about 8 percent a year. "There's a big demand for
electrical service and basic services," says José Luís Olivas Flores,
whom Leaf recruited to lead Aprodelbo, a nonprofit there that
operates the plant and the local grid. "Now we have cellphones,
cybercafés, cable TV. We could say the window has opened to
the world due to having electricity." The 185-kW hydro plant that
ATDER‑BL completed in 1994 can no longer supply the 1,500
homes, farms, small businesses, schools, churches, gas stations,
and municipal government office. Now there's talk of building
an 820-kW hydroelectric plant, he says.
ATDER‑BL must also contend with federal electricity regulations that allow Disnorte to charge the association retail rates
for its electricity but to buy electricity from ATDER‑BL at the
lower wholesale rates. Nicaragua is in the process of reforming
its renewable energy laws, and Leaf and her team are lobbying
legislators for a more equitable arrangement.
Leaf may speak softly, but she has helped an entire region to
speak for itself. And to sing. Irías laughs as he reaches the end
of his song: "And with this I'll leave / Forgive the bad singing /
Got to take care of the project / Which has cost us so much." n
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Spectrum May, 2015