Nicaragua’s push to generate 94 percent of its own electricity from renewable resources by 2016 without damaging the environment has united the country.

“The energy issue is an essential component for our sustainable development to assure the wellbeing and progress of the current and future generations,” says Emilio Rappaccioli, Nicaragua’s minister of energy and mines.

Ortega worked with Nicaragua’s private sector and Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez to fix its immediate energy problem by installing an additional capacity of 343 megawatts of power – 41 percent more power than Nicaragua was producing five years ago.

That means that for the first time in more than a decade, Nicaragua is producing a comfortable surplus of energy.