International Workshop on Local Energy Development opens Tuesday

HAVANA, Cuba, Apr 19 (ACN) Renewable Energy Sources (RES) for local development in Cuba is the core topic of an international workshop that begins online tomorrow, organized by the Cuban Society for the Promotion of Renewable Energy Sources and Environmental Respect (CUBASOLAR).

Energy and food self-sufficiency, resilience and local experiences are high on the agenda of this conference, to be held on CUBASOLAR REDSOLAR's Facebook page, its president, Doctor of Science Luis Bérriz Pérez told ACN.

He pointed out that REFs are an inexhaustible resource that exists in all regions of the country and is called to become the basis of sustainable human development at local, national, municipal and community levels. “They are abundant, free and available in every square meter of the country,

but they alone do not generate development, so we must learn to use them and plan their use,” he remarked. “We must also to promote their demand and turn the local culture, based solely on consumption, into one focused on production-consumption and even become energy suppliers ourselves.”

Bérriz Pérez pointed out that sustainability must build as much on the integration of essentials such as energy, water and food as on environmental sanitation to make socio-productive activity all the more efficient by closing cycles.
He also attached importance to resilience, since a changing environment needs learning programs and knowledge.

Representatives of the Center for Local and Community Development, the Movement of Biogas Users and other Renewable Energy Sources will participate in the event, in addition to other related agencies and projects such as the local program of agricultural innovation, an initiative of the National Institute of Agricultural Science with the support of OXFAM, an NGO working in Cuba since 1993 through local partners that support fair and sustainable development plans.

CUBASOLAR's new initiative is one of the agreements of its XIV International Workshop, where stress was made on the fact that, just as Cuba is a world example in medicine, it could also set one in the field of energy.

The change of the energy matrix in the country is paramount, due to its high reliance on imported fuels for power generation. One of the actions stemming from this process should be the gradually increasing use of the RES, whose origin lies in the sun, as evidenced by tides, waves, biogas, biomass, wind, and solar radiation.