FORCE Blog 4: Co-operative Wind Harvesting in the Netherlands

Cycling along the country roads of Flevoland, you can’t help but notice the wind. If one is lucky, it is behind you, if it isn’t… well, good luck. It is no wonder that windmills haphazardly dot the landscape. They fit. This is the Netherlands, a country where wooden windmills have dotted the landscape for hundreds of years. Now instead of pumping water, modern windmills are powering thousands of homes.

Stephan de Clerck and his brother Ralph live within a few kilometres of each other in Flevoland, and they are no strangers to the wind. They have been harvesting wind energy for 10 years. In the beginning they were looking for ways to diversify their farms and incomes. They love how wind energy perfectly complements their other crops, like potatoes, onions or sugar beets. Once installed, the windmills turn steadily in the background, while the day-to-day life of a farmer continues. For them, wind energy is a valuable crop, and one that gets better the stormier the weather.

Together, Stephan and Ralph produce enough wind energy to power 5000 homes. Their energy is sold through WindUnie, a co-operative that sources and sells wind power to residents of the Netherlands. Ten years ago, WindUnie was a small start-up, but through the engagement of landowners like Stephan and Ralph, this co-operative has grown to be a major player in wind energy market in the Netherlands. Connecting residential customers with small scale producers, the WindUnie website intelligently allows you to explore the suppliers of wind energy, meet their families and see where your wind is coming from. In the case of Stephan and Ralph, you find out that they have 3 and 4 kids respectively and love skiing and walking on their holidays.

Stephan was very happy with the first set of windmills, so much so that he wished to build more. But, by then, the zoning laws had changed and regulations were now requiring windmills to be built in a line rather then individually. Stephan realized that he couldn’t do it on his own. So he went knocking on his neighbours doors and together the 5 of them launched Samen voor de Wind, (Together for the Wind), a co-operative farm of 7 windmills.

Samen voor de Wind has substantially contributed to the financial well-being and health of the families. All the members have young families and they are naturally happy to have the extra income. Furthermore, the co-operative has built a stronger community between the neighbours.

Stephan believes that for renewable energy to succeed, we desperately need to level the subsidy playing field. With the removal of fossil and nuclear fuel subsidies, the market would take over and clean energy would rise to top.

“In the future, instead of all of us being energy users, we will all become energy producers,” says Stephan.

This blog post is part 4 of a series of wind energy stories from photographer Robert van Waarden. Next week meet Petr Pavek, an influential character in Czech Republic politics who has retired to his organic farm to live life more simply.   

FORCE Blog series 2: I Love Windpower Brings Energy and Identity to Mali

“If I had to sum it up in one word, I would say identity,” says Piet Willem Chevalier, owner and operator of I Love Windpower. “On my first trip to Mail, I saw this group of people that were really shy, that didn’t want to ask questions, they had no confidence. After we made that first turbine, we threw a party and it was quite amazing to see how this sense of identity grew.”

One day Piet literally drove off the road, transfixed by a set of wind turbines. He couldn’t have known at that time that this incident would change his life. In a few years he would be bringing wind power to Mali where the poorest communities often pay the highest rates for energy. 

One thing led to another and Piet started working as an engineer for Siemens wind. After about a year he discovered the work of Welsh engineer, Hugh Piggott. Mr. Piggott is the inventor of an open source, affordable, small-scale wind turbine design. Piet invited Hugh to come and teach a workshop in the Netherlands. It took some convincing, but Mr. Piggott finally agreed.

That workshop taught Piet how to build these turbines, and in doing so it changed Piet’s life. Piet knew that he needed to take this new skill and technology to a place where it would be most beneficial and he could pass it on. One of his best friends was from Mali and he figured that Mali was as good as anywhere else to get started. He founded I Love Windpower. Designing a course that was easy to teach, transcended language barriers and used readily available materials, Piet flew to Mali. In two weeks, he and a team of 10 people, 5 who couldn’t read or write and 5 who couldn’t speak any French, built a better turbine than Piet himself had done.

The windmills deliver energy to local homes, but they also had some unexpected impacts. Two men participating in the workshop were from different tribes that for the last 20 years had not spoken to each other. During the workshop the two men became great friends, and now the tribes are talking again. The sense of identity and ownership derived from this windmill project has been remarkable.

“This is something that I never realized when starting this. Even if this project is going to fail completely and they never make a business out of it - which I still believe is possible and just takes some more time - every investment has accomplished so much from a social and identity perspective.”

Recent events in Mali have threatened I Love Windpower’s projects – not only because of the military coup and the rebel unrest, but also due to an impending food crisis. Piet recently wondered whether his little amount of money would be better used feeding people. After much debate with his team, they decided to keep the project running. They thought giving these people something to be proud of, and which one day may become a financially sustainable business, was deemed equally important.

Piet is now also working with Wind Empowerment, a group dedicated to small turbine development across Africa and the globe. He will be attending Rio+20 and setting up windmills around the conference. Some of his volunteers have taken the skills gained with Piet even further, and in one case started the Tanzania branch of I Love Windpower.

As for the Mali project, it is too early to see where it will go, but one thing remains certain, small-scale windmills are helping build community and identity while providing much needed electricity to Mali.

This blog post is part 2 of a series of wind energy stories from photographer Robert van Waarden. Next week meet Amrit Singh Thapa, an engineer from Nepal who has a big wind energy vision.

FORCE blog series 1: Orthodox Community Embraces Renewable Energy in the Czech Republic

 

High on a windmill, hidden amongst the

 cherry orchards and the wheat fields of 

Eastern Czech Republic, is a painting of

 a raven with a piece of bread in its mouth. 

The prophet St. Elias the Tishbite was 

kept alive by ravens feeding him bread

 when he was hidden in the desert. This

 is the St. Elias windmill and it belongs to

 the Pravoslavná Akademie Vilémov, a

 non-profit Orthodox NGO specialized 

in renewable energy.

 

“Everything was given to us by God to survive,’ says Roman Juriga, director of the Akademie, 

“that includes the energy and the capacity to create energy, that is why we have 

named our turbine St. Elias.”

 

 Roman Juriga, is a devout member of the Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia.

 He grew up in communist Czechoslovakia as an atheist as ordered by state decree. 

Outspoken and anti-communist, secretly he studied English, and secured entrance to an 

international English school where he received a better education. Joining the Orthodox 

Church he was encouraged by leaders to attend University to study theology.

 He objected: the government knew he was anti-communist and if they discovered him 

studying, he would be thrown out. The Church offered their protection. Luckily, just as

 the authorities got wind of his studying, the 1989 Velvet Revolution happened and 

communism in Czechoslovakia disintegrated.

 After successfully completing his education, Mr Juriga

 established the Akademie, with the support of the

 church and Orthodox Monastery, in the little village of

 Vilemov. Through small scale solar, wind, and hydro 

power, the Akademie educates kids and adults about 

renewable energy and climate change. The reaction has

 been incredibly positive from all groups, especially

 the secondary school students. Many of them say 

that the information provided by the Akademie is 

in complete disagreement with the information provided

 to the schools by the Temelin Nuclear Plant.

 

 Members of the Monastery and village are very proud

 of the installations. Additionally, several new solar 

thermal installations that were inspired by the Akademie

 have sprung up in the community, an anomaly for this 

area of the country. The Akademie offers free 

consultancy on renewable energy for other churches and church-related 

NGO’s. All this is made possible from the revenue from the 100kw

 St. Elias turbine.

Mr. Juriga has been instrumental in shining some light on the complicated world of clean 

energy bureaucracy in the Czech Republic. The approval process for small energy 

production is very difficult to navigate. Complicated submission procedures and reams

 of paper work protect the vested interests of fossil fuels, politicians and corporations. 

Mr. Juriga has become something of an expert in negotiating the submissions process 

and his successes have become examples and inspirations for others across the 

Czech Republic.

 

 Wind energy in the Czech Republic is lagging compared to Western Europe. 

This is partially due to propaganda by invested fossil fuel interests. However, 

Mr. Juriga recognizes that it is a natural progression for a church to move in the

 direction of small-scale energy production and that it is essential to the 

development of a post carbon world. He also believes that as the Czechs look to 

Germany and see the rapid deployment of clean energy, the future will look 

different in the Czech Republic.

 This blog post is part 1 of a series of wind energy stories from photographer

 Robert van Waarden. Next week meet Piet Willem Chevalier, Dutch mechanical 

engineer, bringing small-scale wind energy to Mali.