

Peru To Power 2 Million Of Its Poorest By Solar Energy - llamataboot
http://planetsave.com/2013/07/15/peru-to-power-2-million-of-its-poorest-by-solar-energy/

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andreasklinger
I would highly recommend to read this reddit comment.

[http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1iiz9x/peru_to_pr...](http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1iiz9x/peru_to_provide_free_solar_power_to_its_2_million/cb52c6d)

As it seems a lot of pro-peru-government PR is done currently to mask actual
political activities.

    
    
        Right now in Perú we have some serious problems with the government.
        Today the congress elected members of political parties that even
        belong to the ruling party ("Gana Perú") as leaders of autonomous
        branches of the government ("tribunal constitucional", "banco central
        de reserva" y "defensoría del pueblo"). This is really bad, because
        the heads of organizations that are meant to protect the people from
        actions of the government and to make the government respect our
        constitution now belong to political parties.
    
        This means: members of the government, ruling party and allies taking
        control over the mechanisms that were originally meant to control
        them, and make sure they are working for the people. Now this
        institutions won't behave the way they should.
    
        We currently have protests in the central area of Lima near the
        congress and the "palacio de gobierno" (the residence of the
        president). Television has all the day covered the story of a
        peripheral fire as if it was the main thing happening. And reddit, you
        should know that the main thing in Perú right now aren't the solar
        panels.
    
        If you want to know something about Perú right know: we are unhappy
        and angry with our government and our inefficient political class. We
        are tired that they work for their own profit and not for the people.
        We are tired of corruption.

~~~
RodericDay
I'm an upper white class peruvian living in NA, and my contribution is going
to be to say that people in the capital just want business business business.

The city is flush with money because of foreign investment, and absolutely any
threat to the country's marketability, such as labor rights or environmental
concerns or opposition to american foreign policy, is aggressively denounced
by laborers on every forum they can find.

The government got to power on a massive wave of pro-social inclusion, anti-
plutocrat sentiment, and the president turned out to be very meek in that
regard, and his activist wife is now the focus of endless back and forth in
the media spotlight.

I would take anything you hear about Peru's current political class with a
grain of salt, we're suffering from libertarian fever a bit.

 __spot on reply by brazilian redditor:
__[http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1iiz9x/peru_to_pr...](http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1iiz9x/peru_to_provide_free_solar_power_to_its_2_million/cb56kou)

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schoash
Don't understand why they have to use the most expensive power. Even people in
wealthy countries cannot afford living on solar, but the poor have to. I am
quite sure there are more and better options.

~~~
_delirium
It appears to be part of a rural electrification program for areas not
currently connected to the power grid. The alternative would be a classic
grid-building effort [1], but those aren't necessarily any cheaper, especially
in mountainous areas. There's been some movement in recent years towards
small-scale non-grid installations instead, e.g. in Jordan [2].

[1] Along the lines of
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_Electrification_Act](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_Electrification_Act)

[2]
[http://www.uob.edu.bh/uob__files/458/vol1/6.pdf](http://www.uob.edu.bh/uob__files/458/vol1/6.pdf)

~~~
nsoldiac
Yup, topography influences energy policy greatly in most countries. Peru is
special because of its diversity...China-like in a much much smaller package.
Mountains are good because of potential for hydroelectric plants, but not good
to build a grid ON them. Jungle has proven a great source of natural gas, but
the Andes mountains severs the jungle from the population centers on the
coast.

I think solar for the mountain population is very interesting. They don't have
anything at all now, not like we're increasing their current energy bill. It's
cleaner than most other options, and very low environmental impact for these
typical rural communities.

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thomasjames
High altitude equatorial nations have their perks, I suppose...

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nsoldiac
About time we got a perk -I'm Peruvian :). Seriously though, we've had more
engineers graduating schools here and more money in state revenues, we're
finally seeing that translate into smarter infrastructure projects.

~~~
jjsz
I wish I can say the same energy, engineer, and infrastructure related comment
about Puerto Rico.

