About Us

About blueEnergy

blueEnergy’s primary mission is to provide a low-cost, sustainable solution to the energy needs of underdeveloped communities in Mexico and Central America. Many of these communities are isolated from their national grids and beyond the service area of their national governments. blueEnergy seeks to addresses their energy needs through the development, construction, installation, and maintenance of hybrid wind/solar energy systems using locally made micro wind turbines.

In order to make its wind turbines affordable, blueEnergy is establishing a regional manufacturing capacity based on local people, local materials, and its low-cost design. The base design was developed by Hugh Piggott, a leading small wind turbine expert with over 20 years’ experience in the field of wind power, and modifications in design are being made given the constraints of regionally available materials and technical capacity. blueEnergy is partnering with regional development and academic institutions in order to better understand these constraints and develop effective ways of addressing them.

blueEnergy is introducing its hybrid energy systems on the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua. Its first manufacturing facility is in the city of Bluefields, the largest city on the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua, with a population of approximately 60,000. Bluefields is an active port town and serves as a base of operations for blueEnergy's project activities along the Coast.

Wind/solar hybrid systems that emphasize wind power have both cost and logistic advantages over other forms of rural electrification, such as grid extension and diesel generators. Several factors conspire to make the cost of grid extension prohibitive: low population density, rugged terrain, and lack of general civil infrastructure such as roads. Most of the communities on the Caribbean Coast are isolated and the transportation and storage of petroleum fuels is difficult; and when generator breakdowns happen, as they often do, there is little ability to handle repairs. In addition, the price of diesel is very high on the Coast - it currently stands around $4 a gallon, this in a country with an annual per capita income of around $450. On the other hand, the Coast has generally good wind and solar resources and the turbines used are locally maintainable and the solar panels are super highly reliable.

While blueEnergy is a charitable, nonprofit, tax-exempt organization, it is not solely in the business of giving things away. blueEnergy is focused on developing new manufacturing and services industries in a severely economically depressed region that can be used to provide local jobs, boost local economies, and provide those in need with critical basic energy services. blueEnergy is nonprofit because it emphasizes social return, however blueEnergy believes that the best way to maximize this social return over time is to build up a sustainable operation that generates revenue through the sales of its energy systems and services in order to complement the funding provided by public support.

blueEnergy History

The idea for blueEnergy start as a class project in October 2002 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Mathias Craig and two classmates developed the idea during a course entitled "Entrepreneurship in the Developing World". Professor Alex (Sandy) Pentland, a world renowned computer scientist, initiated the course to spur the development of business ideas that would address the needs of the world’s underserved populations. The premise of the class was that the two billion people of the world who are often ignored by private enterprise represent a market that awaits a new wave of entrepreneurship where technologies and products are developed that are low cost enough to be widely accessible.

blueEnergy’s first business plan was created as the delivereable for this course and was submitted to the 2002 MIT $1k business plan competition. Out of the 128 submissions entered into the competition, 10 were selected as winners, with blueEnergy chosen as the winner in the Global Markets category. This victory, while small in terms of prize money, gave blueEnergy considerable momentum and helped propel the idea beyond the classroom.

After graduating in the spring of 2003, Mathias Craig dedicated himself to blueEnergy full-time, eventually incorporating it as a nonprofit on November 19, 2003, in the District of Columbia. Mathias assembled a dynamic team to form the core of blueEnergy, which began operations in Nicaragua in May 2004. A French sister association, ER&DE, was formed by Michèle Grégoire, Colette Grinevald and Lâl Marandin (one of blueEnergy's core members) late in 2004 to help facilitate European support for blueEnergy's projects.

blueEnergy obtained its tax-exempt status from the Internal Revenue Service on October 18, 2005.

blueEnergy Personnel