Bringing Renewable Energy to Island Nations

I just received an interesting phone call. Chris Mason, renewable energy contractor in Anguilla (Caribbean) called to discuss my work in Bermuda and understand how it might apply to his country a thousand miles south.

Mason speaks in a calm, measured tone, but there was clearly urgency in his voice as well. “We pay $0.41 to $0.43 a kilowatt-hour for electricity here, and it’s ruining us. The major hotel says that it will be forced to close its doors if we can’t come up with less expensive electricity. But no one is really trying to solve the problem. Can we talk about this?” he implored.

“Of course.  Let me ask you: What are the issues re: solar?” I asked.

“It’s cultural,” Mason explained. “As far as the leaders here are concerned, there is no problem to fix. You flip a switch and the lights come on. Until the power goes out, there is no issue at all. I can do solar arrays for private customers, but there’s no incentive. Not only are there no feed-in tariffs, it’s even illegal to tie them to the grid.”

“Isn’t there any public consciousness on the subject?” I asked. “Won’t these so-called ‘leaders’ eventually be replaced by more enlightened people?”

“Oh yes, the government turns over completely every four years. But instability just makes the problem worse. Investors have no certainty in what they’ll be dealing with even a few short years in the future.”

“I hear you,” I sympathized. “I can tell you about a larger country in which that kind of uncertainty is putting a damper on clean energy. It’s called the United States.”

As we chatted and exchanged ideas, I came to know Chris as a terrific person with a heart the size of Texas. Information on his company, Comet Energy,  and his blog, Caribbean Renewable, is linked here.