In a small clearing at the edge of the rainforest, two rows of solar panels gleam in the scorching late-morning sun. In a shed nearby, inverters hum quietly as they turn the sunlight into electricity, powering a church, a school and a few dozen homes in the village of Santa Helena do Inglês, in the Brazilian Amazon.
Santa Helena do Inglês is one of 19 villages scattered across the Negro River Sustainable Development Reserve, or RDS, a vast protected area spanning 103,000 hectares (254,000 acres) across Amazonas state. Like most of the villages here, it is only reachable by boat, a couple of hours’ journey past river islands and submerged clusters of rainforest.
For years, the community’s remote location meant electricity was sporadic and outages were frequent, residents say. But in June, the village received 132 solar panels, 54 lithium batteries and nine hybrid inverters, installed as part of a new project aiming to bring reliable and clean energy to people living in remote corners of Amazonas state.
The hope is that the pilot scheme will better people’s lives while paving the way for sustainable economic growth, says Virgilio Viana, superintendent at the nonprofit Sustainable Amazon Foundation (FAS by its Portuguese acronym), which is financing the project in partnership with Brazilian lithium battery maker Unicoba.
With the help of FAS, the community started expanding its small fishing industry and investing in tourism, in a bid to build a more sustainable local economy. In 2014, the women in the community opened an ecolodge, a wooden villa painted lime green and bright blue. They started welcoming small groups of visitors eager to be closer to nature and experience life in this corner of the Amazon.
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In the Brazilian Amazon, solar energy brings light — and new opportunities