"Hugh Pigott, a Scottish wind energy designer, is the creator of the Piggott Wind Turbine, an open source self-built windmill. In 2009, Argentines Esteban Van Dam, an industrial engineer, and Luciana Proietti, an anthropologist, came across Hugh's design and were inspired.

 

The Piggott wind turbine is widely used around the world and has been used in various applications by over 50 organizations in 30 countries on four continents. At a workshop organized by a non-profit organization, BlueEnergy, on the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua, Esteban and Luciana learned how to build and repair them, and how this knowledge was then shared with communities.

 

They decided to return to Argentina with these learnings to create their own NGO considering Argentina's energy requirements and its incredible wind energy potential. Esteban traveled to Ireland to learn from Hugh himself. He asked him a ton of questions, then Esteban and Luciana built a wind turbine on their own to fully master it. technology.

 

"From there, the idea was to do the same as Hugh has done, spread the information through technology transfer and focus on rural development," says Luciana. "The name 500RPM is a play on words between the revolutions per minute of a wind turbine when it reaches its maximum power and this revolutionary technology, since anyone can learn to build a wind turbine."

 

The Piggott Wind Turbine, with 30 years of improvements and designed under the principles of self-construction, simplicity and durability, requires very little maintenance and is ideal for installation in isolated places where there is no standard electrical grid.

 

This wind turbine has a horizontal axis, three blades, and can be manufactured in six different nominal powers, ranging from 200 to 1,000W, and in three operating voltages of 12V, 24V and 48V.

 

Esteban and Luciana's organization, 500RPM, has gradually expanded since they were first introduced to the wind turbine in 2009, and now includes 12 people working on project training and implementation. So far, 500RPM has delivered around 100 courses and developed more than 30 projects in 12 Argentine provinces, manufactured more than 60 wind turbines, trained more than 2,500 people, and helped more than 1,000 people benefit from clean electricity.

 

500RPM focuses on sharing practical and theoretical knowledge about one of the most widely used open-source self-built wind turbines in the world."

 

The original language note can be found at https://www.undp.org/acceleratorlabs/peoplepowered/solutions/500Rpm