John Beasley

Country: Nicaragua
Organization: Hurricane Ventures

BEASLEY: "My internship this summer with Hurricane Ventures expanded upon an idea born out of the commercial challenges of developing, operating, and maintaining a solar energy project in Central America.

The previous summer I worked with a project developer, Global 2020, on a 12.5MW solar project near the capital city of Managua. In the process of overall market research and specifically while sourcing contractors, Global 2020 recognized the overwhelming lack of local human capital capable of performing the required engineering and electrical work to build and operate a solar field. Furthermore, while this project was the first and largest of its kind in Nicaragua, other Central American countries had previously built solar projects, only to see their productivity drop significantly or fail entirely due to lack of certifications, regulations, and overall operation and maintenance challenges (O&M). As the summer of 2016 progressed, we (Global 2020) began to sketch out a rough outline of what a training program might look like and brought in Hurricane Ventures, a local project management firm with experience in socially oriented initiatives to begin implementation.

Over the course of the 2016/2017 academic year, I worked with Hurricane Ventures to draft proposals and grant applications to source funding for the project. We initially envisioned a simple collaboration and joint venture with a local Nicaraguan university that would use Global 2020’s working project site as a classroom facility to incorporate into engineering and electrical training classes.

Today's project is still ongoing and I continue to help Hurricane Ventures, primarily with writing proposals and explaining the breakdown of the project for various agencies. One visual that includes some of the German companies who will be involved can be found in my PowerPoint presentation. As my blog posts indicated, I grew quite frustrated with the bureaucratic slog that accompanied the expansion of the project. Governments and aid agencies move very slowly and cautiously but the need for this type of training in the region is immediate. I am encouraged by the enthusiasm with which our ideas were received but I worry that the program will not reach its potential before more mistakes in the solar industry have been made. Ultimately though, I believe this project is headed in the right direction and can be a future model for technology transfer in developing countries. The critical piece is that the private sector players have a financial incentive to help and this is not just an aid project. For developers like Global 2020, being able to hire local workers for O&M will significantly cut down on CAPEX spending, and the German suppliers will gain a foothold in a region with great potential. The challenge remains getting all the disparate groups, with various goals and objectives, to work together towards a common goal and share the financial risk accordingly.