Solar Power Lights Up a Village...As a Poor State Longs for Tourists (int'l edition)

When it rains or just clouds over for more than a day, Juana del Valle de Vasquez misses the two soap operas she likes to watch on her 13-inch black-and-white TV, and she can't switch on a light. Until the sky returns to cobalt blue, it's back to the hurricane lamps she has used all her life in El Cedro, a scrubby hamlet of 160 souls, accessible only by boat, perched on the shore of eastern Venezuela's Araya Peninsula. Luckily, it doesn't rain too often on this parched finger of land. ''We have to wait for the sun to recharge the batteries. Usually it's not very long, but the other week we had to wait three days,'' says Vasquez.

El Cedro is the first town in Venezuela to be powered by solar energy, which was installed by the Sucre state government two years ago in a pilot project to provide cheap, reliable electricity to isolated villages. But a lack of funds has prevented the program from being extended. If this year's budget can be stretched by $63,000, Sucre is eager to add more solar cells to power more effective street lighting in El Cedro and install a system in another remote fishing village near Macuro on the Paria Peninsula--where Christopher Columbus first stepped onto South America.

Although over 90% of Venezuela's population has electricity, the network is so deteriorated that entire regions suffer chronic blackouts. Officials estimate $3 billion is needed to modernize, but with huge swaths of the country bathed daily in strong sunlight, many believe large-scale solar energy could be a cheaper option. So far, Sucre is taking the lead. In El Cedro and other communities, the state government first tried diesel-powered generators. But they proved awkward to maintain and expensive, what with the salary of an operator, plus the cost of fuel, lubricants, parts, and transportation to isolated locations. They also proved susceptible to human foible. ''Sometimes the operator didn't feel like turning it on, even when he wasn't drunk,'' says resident Rosa Ramona de Vasquez--who is related to Juana, and just about everyone else in the village.

VAMPIRE BATS. So Sucre turned to solar. Much cheaper than electrical lines to install, the system thereafter requires little maintenance and its raw material is free and abundant. But users complain that their rooftop panels, which during sun-filled hours charge two car batteries kept in a cupboard inside the house, don't provide enough juice to run refrigerators and fans, or keep lights on to deter hungry vampire bats.

Residents, who readily spout the voltages of various household appliances, have thus learned to ration their free electricity carefully. An hour of TV will use up almost a day's full charge of 150 volts, while a lightbulb--each house has five--will pull 15 volts an hour. ''We need more cells,'' says Jesus Vasquez. The problem is always money, says state Public Works Director Cesar Rincones Luna, whose department is suffering from a 30% budget cut this year. So it looks as if, for a good while to come, Juana Vasquez will be missing her soap operas every time the nimbus clouds roll in.

One of Venezuela's poorest states, Sucre sees tourism as the motor that could drive economic development into the next century. Fringed by a coast of white sand and bowing palm trees, the largely unexploited state already attracts a smattering of European tourists to its quaint inns, thermal springs, and buffalo and cacao farms, as well as to its pristine beaches. Officials believe that once they expand the airport in Cumana, the capital, to accommodate widebody jets, and build a highway from the commercial tourist mecca of Puerto La Cruz east to Cumana, more will come.

The country's deep recession and political turbulence (page 37) have held up plans for the time being, but ''foreign investors are interested,'' says Rincones Luna. ''We're waiting for the right time to put out the bids.'' Other plans include promoting Cumana's historical zone, which boasts a beautifully restored Spanish fort and a new modern art museum, as well as picturesque colonial-style houses lining narrow streets. In the meantime, the government is trying to beef up infrastructure--because without adequate electricity, roads, and water supplies, Sucre will never lure the tourist crowds it dreams of.

By Christina Hoag in El Cedro