HAVANA: Around 500,000 people living in remote mountainous areas of Cuba will finally be able to pack away their oil lamps, listen to radio, and even watch TV, thanks to the growing use of renewable energy sources in this Caribbean island nation.

“A plan got underway this year to bring electricity to some 100,000 homes using photovoltaic (solar) panels,” Luis Birriz, president of the non-governmental organization Cubasolar, which promotes the use of renewable, green-friendly sources of energy, told IPS.

Cubasolar received the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Global 500 award for its solar energy programme in June 2001.

The pace at which the project will go ahead will depend on the funds available to Cubasolar. “It would be great if we could complete it within a year, but our work will depend on the available financing,” said Birriz. “These initiatives are costly.”

He said it cost $1,870 to bring electricity to each home through photovoltaic or solar electric panels, and to equip each household with six lamps, a TV set and a radio cassette player.

The aim of the ambitious project is to bring electricity to the five per cent of households in Cuba, a country of 11.2 million, that are not connected to the national power grid.

“My uncle Manuel lives in the bush out in Guantanamo, and lights his home with an oil lamp,” said Mercedes, a young mother who has relatives in the province of Guantanamo, located at the extreme eastern tip of the island, 971 kms from Havana.

“Everything’s really difficult for him, but he works a small plot of land out there and raises his livestock,” she said.

Mercedes explained that she had never even visited her uncle “because you have to hike into the hills” by foot, or, in the best of circumstances, ride in a horse- or ox-drawn cart.

Experts say solar panel systems are the best solution for households like Manuel’s, which are dispersed around isolated areas.

In the past three years, more than 2,300 schools in remote parts of the country have been provided with electricity by means of solar panels and equipped with TV sets, VCRs and computers, to improve the quality of teaching.—Dawn/The InterPress News Service.