Some lucky Racha residents are enjoying a warmer winter this year thanks to an international development program and some clever alternative energy technologies.

Racha, a region within the larger Racha-Leckhumi and Kvemo Svaneti province, is (like most corners of the country) touted as a renowned and historic region famed for its year-round beauty.

The United Nations Development Program (UNDP), with support from the Georgian government, is leading a project called “Georgia—Promoting the Use of Renewable Energy Resources for Local Energy Supply.”

The project was motivated by the harsh living conditions Racha residents face each year. Financed by the UNDP, the goal is to introduce new energy resources into the isolated and rugged Georgian mountains.

The project’s name may be unwieldy, but the results are not.



Storing up sunny days

To begin, project coordinators helped 30 families install solar-powered water heating systems on their homes.

The solar-powered water heating system cost about USD 700 each, but the cost is covered by UNDP.

Khatuna Arjevanidze is a single mother of five children; her husband was killed years ago in an accident. The family cannot afford new clothes for the children, let alone pay for utilities. But after installing the heating system, the family has hot water on cold days.

“I can’t say anything except a big thank you,” she said.

The equipment is installed on the roof of each house; during the summer, the water can be heated up to 70 degrees Celsius, and about 30 or 40 degrees in the winter.

Another beneficiary of the new heating systems is a sports school, where around 200 children exercise each day.

Those kids can now shower after playing football or basketball. UNDP task manager Aleko Turdziladze says the sport school was repaired by the local council of Oni, one of the two districts in Racha, to provide hot, running water. Previously, the school used expensive electricity to heat water.

The project is also aiding local entrepreneurs. The Berishvili family in Oni run a small guesthouse, and the solar-powered water heating has reduced their overhead costs.

“After the earthquake, conditions got bad here,” said Mayvala Berishvili, referring to the 1991 earthquake which devastated Racha, killing an estimated 270 and leaving tens of thousands homeless. “We decided to open a guesthouse in our own home… We have many tourists, mainly in the summer. A lot of foreign tourists come here and stay with us. With this income, we can buy sugar, salt, wood and some other necessary things for the family during winter.”

“One of our project’s main goals is to support local small- and medium-sized business. One of the main priorities for the region is to [transform itself] into a tourist destination, and we think we did our bit to contribute,” said project manager Paata Janelidze, adding that the energy sources they are introducing are environmentally clean and safe.



Don’t have a cow, man, have biogas

Nothing, however, excited the Rachvelebi as much getting a new source of cooking gas for their homes. 18 families now are enjoying the region’s first foray into the wonders of biogas.

Racha’s biogas is harvested from a convenient source: cow dung.

The cow dung and its gases are funnelled through a series of concrete reservoirs, eventually being piped to the household stove.

“The reservoir inside the cattle shed should be loaded with six cubic meters of dung mixed with water. It must be sealed off so that air can’t get inside,” explained Janelidze. “In ten days, bacteria will be emitting the gas. After that, you can use the biogas for five to six hours each day.”

The biogas installations were done for the families which had enough cows. Four cows was the bare minimum to produce enough dung (and gas).

“We’re very happy to have this gas,” said local resident Nino Museridze. “It’s no different from the usual natural gas, and we can make our breakfast or dinner sooner than we used to.”

Museridze says their cows indirectly provide three to four hours-worth of gas in the winter, and much more in the summer.

Another new energy technology the UNDP project brought to Racha is more efficient wood-burning heaters.

“All day long it burns wood, but only a little,” Janelidze enthused.

“We gave the heaters to families of old people and large families which aren’t able to gather wood in the forests. In total, 60 families in Oni district have this heater now,” he continued, explaining that the heaters’ efficiency is due to a better design which makes use of the smoke’s heat.

Papuna Metreveli’s family is one of those given the heaters. He is the father of three small children, and said the heater has been a big help for the household.

“My family needed to use about six to seven cubic meters of wood [for] the winter—but now I use half that,” Metreveli said.

The newly-appointed Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources, Davit Chantladze, also visited Metrveli’s family to look at the new heater.

“With the UN’s support, the problem of heating has been partly solved,” Chantladze said.

Otar Siradze, governor of the Racha-Lechkumni and Kvemo Svaneti province, expressed his appreciate to UN representatives for the projects they are overseeing in Racha.

“Many families are very satisfied with your projects, and our people would be glad if your collaboration with us would continue,” Siradze declared.

Siradze said that a project to develop the area into a major tourist center is underway beginning from next year.

UNDP is also working with other organizations on a separate project, the Rural Energy Program. Funded by USAID and implemented by Winrock International, the project is a four-year effort to increase energy supply to rural communities.

In the village of Nergeeti, 20 kilometers from Kutaisi, a small hydropower station is being built with the goal of producing affordable electricity for local residents and selling the surplus to the rest of the country.

“The local community is really depressed at the moment, economically depressed, and there’s no reliable power supply. There are a number of small businesses here which have been restarted, and it’s important to have electricity here to support those. So this project is very useful for the locals,” said Horst U. Meinecke of Winrock Georgia.

The power station was previously unused, in disrepair and gathering dust. When it is finished being rebuilt at the end of this year, it could provide jobs and cheap electricity to the village.

And up north in Racha, UN resident coordinator in Georgia Robert D. Watkins said his organization wasn’t the only one satisfied with their project’s results. He has promised the governor he would visit Racha again early next year to talk about future projects.

“We want to know how people will accept this kind of new technology, like the biogas and the solar energy,” he said. The signs are favourable so far, he continued, but the next step will be to convince other residents they can save money by buying the equipment themselves.

“The real test [of the energy technology] is if people buy it on their own,” Watkins said.