WISIONS of Sustainability

Our mission is to empower individuals and communities to transform the production and use of energy so that it effectively enables sustainable development. Read more about WISIONS activities, goals and background.

News Blog

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Local Capacity-Building through RedBioEc, the Ecuadorian Biodigester Network

News from WISIONS posted on February 28th, 2018
Building on the WISIONS-supported formation of the Ecuadorian Biodigester Network in 2016, one of our most recent SEPS exchanges seeks to further develop a strong base of biodigester practitioners within Ecuador and form linkages between actors with interest in the technology at local and national levels.Read moreMinimize

The exchange activities are centred around a series of practical capacity-building workshops, bringing together a range of actors from community groups and academia with the direct ability to replicate and promote the advancement of biodigester technology.

In addition, the exchange programme provides support for the creation of locally and regionally appropriate training materials, “field days” to promote biodigester implementation to potential users and public agencies, and a national-level event to share local experiences, raise awareness of the technology within public and international agencies, promote existing replication capacity created through the exchange, and strengthen the national level network.

Recently, the first out of three initial workshops was carried out in El Paraíso (Imbabura, Northern Sierra, 19 - 21 Feb). It focused on practical details of tubular plastic digester design/sizing, installation, and appropriate siting to ensure sustainability.

Participants represented rural community organisations, smallholders and local universities, and a significant number came from local government and agribusinesses, providing an opportunity to integrate additional viewpoints into discussions of biodigester application during the workshop. The vast majority of the participants aim to install and/or improve an existing biodigester within the next three months.

The following two workshops will take place in El Empalme (Guayas, South/Central Coast, 23 – 26 Mar) and Ayancay (Cañar, Southern Sierra, 26 – 28 Mar).

Biogas Generation at Colombian Coffee Farms

News from WISIONS posted on February 14th, 2018
The UTA Foundation is currently leading an initiative to implement biogas technologies at small coffee farms in four districts of Colombia. The aim of this initiative is to improve the production processes at the plants, as well as enhancing economic, social and environmental aspects of the communities involved.Read moreMinimize

One of our recent SEPS projects under the framework of the Colombian Biomass Network – RedBioCOL – aims to make use of the organic waste generated by coffee cultivation and common practices in diversified production processes. Three technologies will be implemented to establish the energy sovereignty of the farmer organisations: gasification-fuelled cookstoves, tubular plug-flow biodigesters and gasification-fuelled coffee dryers.

Construction and implementation activities related to the technologies have recently been carried out at a number of coffee farms. Furthermore, training sessions were run at UTA’s headquarters, during which the input of coffee into a drying unit and the operation of a corresponding biomass gasifier were demonstrated for 6 consecutive hours. This practical display is important because most participating farmer organisations are familiarising themselves with biogas technology for the first time.

Other workshops aimed at disseminating the results of the project among various local and regional actors, as well as targeting university students who have expressed interest in becoming involved in monitoring activities.

Workshop: Knowledge Sharing Between Micro-Hydro Practitioners

News from WISIONS posted on February 3rd, 2018
One of our most recent SEPS Exchange Activities in Nepal aims to expand the knowledge base among technically sound but managerially and financially weak micro-hydro plants to ensure their sustainable commercial operation. Read moreMinimize

In Nepal, micro-hydro power generation is already widespread. Nevertheless, challenges such as poor management, weak technical skills and poor financial operation prevent community-owned micro-hydro plants (MHPs) from making a lasting impact on people’s livelihoods.

Our project partners at WINROCK have recently organised a knowledge-sharing workshop between the owners and operators of five malfunctioning and three successfully operating MHPs in Nepal.

Specific objectives of the workshop included:

  • To survey current managerial issues and challenges faced by MHPs and to establish informal relationships among MHP user committee members to assess contributing factors
  • To share findings of a baseline study with the participants
  • To share MHP success stories and best practices to resolve management issues
  • To carry out field visits at successfully operating MHPs
  • The development by each MHP of an action plan to improve their performance

The participants gained a lot of knowledge from each other and will apply this to their MHP operations in the coming months.

More general information is available on our SEPS project page: Sharing Learning Across Projects: Operating Micro Hydro Plants (MHP) as Commercially Viable Enterprises

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