I’m Joe Fields. In the late 1990s, my company, Marketec SolViento S.A. (along with a partner company), began a six-year wind monitoring and feasibility project in the Andes region of Ecuador. The site is near the village of Salinas, Province of Imbabura, about 90 miles [150 km] north of the capital city of Quito.
I’m the one in the ever-stylish blue denim jacket, white T-shirt and nonmatching green cap. Here I am taking a break with my Ecuadorean pals (who did a lot of the heavy lifting), securing instrumentation wiring to a 40-m pole, and surveying the valley for monitoring sites. The gentleman next to me in the tractor photo, wearing a white hardhat and sunglasses, is my friend and partner Alfredo Mena. He has spent many years teaching and working in the energy sector and government of Ecuador, and operates a not-for-profit renewable energy company based in Quito: Corporación Para la Investigación Energética (CIE)
The data demonstrated economic feasibility, but so far the 12- to 15-MW Salinas project has failed to attract private investors to Ecuador for development. It may, however, be developed in the future by the government’s electrical utility organization.
Alfredo and I formed Marketec SolViento in 1995 to monitor wind energy at a site called Páramo Grande, near the town of Alóag, 18 miles (30 km) south of Quito. Sponsored by the U.S. Trade and Development Agency (TDA), based on our competitive proposal, the project proved unfeasible after a year of monitoring due to seasonal variations in wind energy. However, the experience and expertise gained during the project proved invaluable for application to the later and more successful project at Salinas.