In Las Guásimas, a sugarcane-growing community of Contramaestre, science and innovation, powered by the sun, combine to transfer electricity to the National Electric System, SEN.
This is the installation of the first photovoltaic solar park in the province of Santiago de Cuba, a strategic renewable energy project that will increase the country’s energy generation capacity. Yanier Castillo Leyva, a specialist investor in the electricity sector in Contramaestre, confirms this.
“We worked on all the earthworks, in which the company ECOA-24 from the province of Santiago de Cuba participated; we worked on the main and secondary roads. Other companies also worked on the driving, as is the case of CUBISA.
The driving, which are pillars or metal drills that serve as support for the tables that later support the photovoltaic panels, is already one hundred percent in the four existing platforms; the perimeter fencing was also driven one hundred percent.
The ECOA-57 company is currently working on the assembly of the tables, which total 1,638 tables that will support one hundred percent of the solar panels; this company also worked on the civil part, since three inverters have been built; the base was also built for the primary and secondary, which are the transformers that convert the direct current into alternating current. Three of these inverters have already been built.
Thanks to the sun that shines on us, we will have electric power. This helps a lot to the country’s and the province’s electricity. We are contributing to the country’s progress because we know the problem with oil, how expensive it is in the international market, and with this we will contribute to save and provide better service to the population”.
Las Guásimas photovoltaic solar generation project, the first of its kind in Santiago de Cuba, covers some 36 hectares of land surface, where four platforms with 1,638 tables that will support 42,588 photovoltaic panels are located.
Pedro Luis Columbié Correoso, a specialist in power plant exploitation, specifies that “as such, the project, Las Guásimas solar park, is part of the Cuban State’s policy to change our energy matrix that depends on coal sources and turn it into a renewable source of energy.
In this case, Las Guásimas will deliver 87 MW to the 21 MW system; it is composed of 7 inverters, which is a new technology from the People’s Republic of China; at the same time, it is composed of 42,588 photovoltaic panels that have a marked energy efficiency.
The inverters are not conceived as grid formers, they depend on the solar irradiance that is being supplied at the time of the day to inject that energy into the System, they do not have energy accumulation, what they do is to convert through the panels the solar energy into direct current electric energy, and then through the inverters they convert that direct current energy into alternating current energy. It is a Science and Innovation project. It is the future of the Energy Revolution. It is one of the cutting-edge technologies that is being used in the world and is in line with the UN guidelines, to depend less and less on carbon sources of energy”.
The photovoltaic solar park Las Guásimas, which is being built in Contramaestre, is an example of a challenging constructive effort that foresees the inclusion of women with intelligent thinking.
“It is a lot of sacrifice, dedication, commitment because it is every day, without rest, without weekends, without being able to take care of the family as it should, without cleaning, even cooking without electricity. “Despite the fact that it is a complicated work that requires many men, here we women are, doing everything we can, taking our step forward, at the foot of the cannon”.
Innovation with solar energy to convert sunlight into electricity, through the photoelectric effect, as a backup to the energy independence Cuba needs, is strongly prioritized in Contramaestre, to ensure a voltage of 21.8 megawatts through modules structured in chain and interconnected in series.
“We are at 35 percent of the project’s execution and right now we are in the work of assembling the structures and after that would come the wiring to connect the panels to the inverters, and from the inverters to the primary cell containers and the control container.After that, it would be the connection of the primary cell container to the National National Electric System”.
The future reality of the photovoltaic solar park Las Guásimas, the first one in Santiago de Cuba, is the awakening of a dream that changes the matrix in electricity generation.
“The complete synchronized park must be delivered to the system on May 17. On that day we will be injecting 21.8 megawatts of electricity into the national grid of the system during daylight hours, when the sun is shining.We hope to solve most of the energy problems from what is generated here. For a cleaner, more innovative energy”.
