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Carlos Rodriguez has been making this trip for over a decade.
Working for a local NGO bringing alternative energy options
to communities in the Argentine Andes,
the journey takes him to altitudes over four thousand metres,
to villages cut off from everything except the wind and the sun.
We are in the heart of the Puna of Jujuy.
We are near to the border with Bolivia and with Chile.
We are now arriving to Misa Rumi,
this is a really important village for EcoAndina,
it's the first village in that EcoAndina
introduced solar technology, for solar heating.
A native of the Puna Andina, Julian Martinez has been trained
as the resident solar energy expert to over thirty neighbouring villages.
It accumulates all of the solar rays here
and hits them towards the window of the oven
that is this.
Everything hits here and the refection heats the oven that we have inside
Further than that, this funcions in an automatic manner,
that has a small panel and a sensor
and inside that it has a small motor that is here behind.
This is it.
The motor turns automatically.
To have a person from here, from the region that incentivises the people, you see
how to manage it, how to make bread or a pizza
whatever they want to make in the oven.
It was difficult in the beginning to incentivize the people,
but today as it is I see it that everyone are day by day using it more you see
the solar theme
In every way already, no!
The intensity of the sun's rays in the Andean Puna
is matched by only five other locations on the earth above sea level.
On average in every hour, it soaks up
two thousand nine hundred kilowatts per square metre.
Over three times that of Northern Europe.
The world's fastest growing energy source; solar
which has until now been the reserve of the developed world
is offering a natural lifeline to such remote cultures.
Today, Misa Rumi's community of fifty families
is lit up as one of the world's only solar villages.
I am from the neighbourhood council that knows the reality of my people.
Never before the people told us; use this, use that,
but they came to help and like that the people identified for us
about the theme of the sun,
about the theme of the wind to create energy,
and to make use of these energies.
For the most part the climate in this Puna is a lot of sun
we enjoy a lot, we have a lot of solar rays
and for that we want to make the most of them.
For the school, for the primary school.
Heating of the classes the kitchen and the school rooms,
the dormitories where the children sleep is cold.
In this period it is twenty degrees below zero.
So it is really very cold.
We are very satisfied, sincerely we are really very proud.
As Carlos beings the long journey back to lower ground
the regions need for alternative energy options lays his path.
The region in general is suffering a strong process of desertification
for the over-grazing and the cutting of the wooden vegetation.
The projects are done with the communities,
with the active participation of the people of the community
where they take important decisions for the projects.
and they have be supportive on top of that for the project.
They are not just beneficiaries.
The people that have a little money pay one peso for maintenance.
Like that is the way in which we are managing it since a little while.
Still some things are missing
but we have gotten together with some authorities for its better utilisation.
The change, might have been change regarding I don't know if you can say the culture
but the form of living we could say for the fact we already dont spend on wood
we no longer spend on the same amount of gas.
It's much less. At least for me, I am all about solar
every day using solar.
For now the projects are limited to providing energy and heat
but as the seeds of ambition have hit fertile ground
Julian and his community are hoping there's much more to come.
These loaves that we have done they are beautiful
they bring a lot of benefits,
especially for the people that have little resources
for of whom there is no source of income, the solar option is something good, no!
What we are waiting for is that there could be something more
so that we can incentivize ourselves using the solar theme
as the power to live with the little gains we have in the economy you see.
This would be something very important we can say no!
Our future children to begin with my own children
they will be like me or better off even in that they can know
how to make the most of what we have in the best way possible.