Mathias Craig (B.S.’01 CEE) with a young friend in Nicaragua, where he cofounded his company blueEnergy, which has brought wind turbines to six communities and provided electric power to 1,500 people.

Photo credit: Courtesy Mathias Craig

In remote villages along Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast, the seemingly simple act of switching on a light is anything but simple. It’s usually impossible.

Mathias Craig (B.S.’01 CEE) wants to change that. Craig, 29, is cofounder of blueEnergy, a nonprofit organization that is harnessing the power of the wind to illuminate homes, schools and rural clinics in an impoverished region where nearly 80 percent of the residents have no electricity.

Since 2004, blueEnergy has brought wind turbines to six Nicaraguan communities, providing electricity to some 1,500 people. Rather than giving residents a handout, the nonprofit relies on community members to help install and maintain the hybrid wind and solar systems. “We take more of a holistic approach,” Craig says.

While still in its infancy, blueEnergy is generating plenty of attention. Last July Craig won a CNN Heroes award, and his organization routinely fields a steady stream of requests to expand its operations.

“The plan is to take it global,” says Craig, who at the same time wants to take a methodical approach to make sure they “get things right.” Working from San Francisco, Craig travels to Nicaragua about four times a year and joins a team of 11 local employees, 10 international volunteers and his brother Guillaume at the organization’s operations and manufacturing base in the town of Bluefields.

Because there are no roads leading to most communities they serve, simply reaching these villages involves an often tortuous, six-hour trip by small fiberglass boat or native dugout canoe. Further complicating the commute, Craig says: “It’s hurricane country.”

A wind turbine, which typically has six-foot-long blades and is posted on a 60- to 80-foot tower, can power 10 modest homes or a clinic. Each system costs about $12,000 to $15,000, with funding coming from foundations and private donations.

“Their dynamics are very complex,” says Craig, who trains three residents in each community how to operate the systems. UC Berkeley’s Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory (RAEL) will soon conduct performance tests on blueEnergy’s wind turbines. Craig plans to share the results with the Nicaraguan government, which has expressed interest in installing the turbines on a widespread basis.

Craig, who grew up in Eugene, Oregon, has long been intrigued by renewable energy. That interest blossomed at Berkeley, in the interdisciplinary Energy and Resources Group. Craig developed the idea for blueEnergy in a class on entrepreneurship in the developing world, which he took while earning his master’s at MIT. Nicaragua was a natural base of operations, since the Craig brothers frequently traveled there as boys while their mother, a linguist, studied Amerindian languages of the region.

Sustainable energy is having a powerful impact on these communities, providing a low-cost alternative to dirty diesel generators. Already, Craig has seen the fruits of his labors: youngsters conducting evening study halls, lights going on in a tiny health clinic, even villagers switching on a TV to watch Spanish-language soap operas.

“We’re not there to dictate the uses,” he says. “We really see our role as providing opportunities.”

By Abby Cohn