Thirty five km north from Montes Claros, in a small farm town Pau d’Oleo, lies the Fazenda Mandacarú. The fazenda has 250 acres of terrain and is run by Luiz Carlos Afonso. He established a farm, an infrastructure for planting projects and started an eco-hotel Babilonia. It functions as a platform for social projects aiming to develop the local people thereby providing them a better future perspective. Key is that the development is driven in a sustainable manner respecting and preserving the nature.
One of such social projects will take place in June 2013 in collaboration with “ILWP”. A mixed group of farmers and craftsman from Montes Claros will learn how to make an efficient and durable wind turbine from local available tools and materials.
These locally built wind turbines can provide durable energy to small communities in windy off-grid places and at the same time provide development and employment to the rural – more socially secluded – Brazilians.
The wind turbine is designed and open-sourced by Hugh Piggott (http://www.scoraigwind.com). The key element about this turbine is that it is relatively easy to make and thereby can open doors to low-educated people to get involved and develop themselves in making their own electricity.
Marco Ogno, who has been recently trained in Holland by ILWP, will teach the first to become generation Brazilian teachers. Working together, the group will complete an one kW wind turbine and install it on a wooden tower.