West-central Puerto Rico, Indiera Alta, in the municipality of Maricao. DC Microgrid includes a SunStar direct drive fridge, 48V direct drive pump, and a 100AH 12V nickel iron battery kit.
Aurora Levins Morales is a Puerto Rican-Jewish writer and activist born in Indiera Alta, in west-central Puerto Rico. She has written expensively on Latina feminism and Third World feminism, as well as other social justice movements. Aurora lives off the grid at Finca La Lluvia, a permaculture demonstration site and artist retreat center in the barrio where she was born. She reached out to us in 2022, as she was struggling to meet her energy needs with an AC battery-based solar system.
The LEF team and our trainees have since installed a direct drive fridge, direct drive pump, and 100AH nickel iron battery kit at Finca la Lluvia. The 100AH kit is intended to exclusively power Aurora’s CPAP machine, which she needs to run at night, due to a brain injury.
Aurora has been using her reach as a writer to promote LEF and DC solar. She posted this article about how our DC Microgrid design is transforming how she uses energy on her farm, calling our approach “Energy Permaculture.”