The Community of Practice Solar Photovoltaic (COP-ESF) aims at the dissemination and sharing of updated information on the situation, trends and opportunities for solar PV in Latin America and the Caribbean. The information disseminated on the website of the COP-ESF include: the technical aspects of applications in small and large scale projects both in rural areas far from the grid, as grid-connected installations, well as non-technical aspects of legal, economic, environmental and institutional nature.

The second edition of the WISIONS publication ‘Sustainble Energy for Poverty Reduction’ describes a range of projects that contribute to this end. One is the community-based adaptation project Solar Pintadas.
The aim of this project is to support rural development and entrepreneurship by increasing agricultural production through an efficient irrigation system driven by renewable energy. The project achieves this by using photovoltaic and biodiesel water pumps to improve local irrigation systems.

The project takes place in the community of Pintadas, in the Bahia state of Brazil, which is suffering increasingly severe drought impacts linked to climate change. There is a high demand for legumes from local and national markets, and a potential to cultivate a greater area of land for this purpose, but opportunities to expand local agricultural practices in this direction are restricted by the absence of an efficient, cost-effective irrigation system. Further, the high insulation rate of the area makes it extremely suitable for effective solar energy systems.