The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

A Bahamian-owned company has invested $1.1 million over the past year to ‘ramp up’ its business ahead of a renewable energy “explosion” that will meet the Government’s 2030 alternative supply target.

Richard Parker, president of Power Windsun Bahamas, which has just installed 39 kilowatts (KW) of solar power at Tambearly School, told Tribune Business that after an initial slow take-up this nation would “rather quickly” reach the goal of generating 30 per cent of its energy needs from renewable sources.

Disclosing that Power Windsun had invested $500,000 in equipment and materials over the past two months alone, Mr Parker said the Bahamas Electricity Corporation (BEC) had encouraged him to begin solar power installations on commercial and residential buildings.

“The total invested to date is about $1.1 million. That’s over 12 months,” Mr Parker told Tribune Business. “Over the past two months, we’ve put in $500,000. It’s ramping up at this point.

“We’ve invested in over 500 Kw of solar equipment, which is now arriving. As I speak to you, there two 40-foot containers pulling up, and in each one there is about 171 Kw of solar panels. It’s a huge capital investment.”

Power Windsun has already signed contracts to install a solar power system at a commercial building in Marsh Harbour, Abaco, and is talking to another New Providence school “with a much larger roof than Tambearly”.

While declining to identify both projects, Mr Parker said the second school was likely to make a decision this week following a Board meeting.

He told Tribune Business that Power Windsun had received a further boost from the willingness of Bahamian underwriters to insure its solar systems, following extensive research and development work to make them hurricane-resistant.

Rather than nailing panels to a roof, and risk damage to the latter if they were torn off during a storm, Mr Parker said the company had worked with a Florida-based engineer from October last year to mitigate that risk.

They had developed a ‘slotted system’ where the panels slotted into a rack, and Mr Parker said Power Windsun had also developed thicker glass for the panels to provide “more hurricane proofing”.

“Bahamas First, J S Johnson and Summit have all agreed they will insure our solar panels, because of the fact they like the engineering, the strength in the glass,” Mr Parker told this newspaper.

“They are prepared to insure them at the same rate as they insure the building, in the case of Bahamas First. We’re trying to dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s so the system does all it’s supposed to do, it doesn’t affect BEC and it’s insured in the event of a hurricane loss.”

Rather than wait for the Government to pass the necessary legislation and regulatory framework, plus associated incentives, to facilitate renewable energy in the Bahamas, Mr Parker said he was looking to help property owners “help themselves”.

This approach, he added, had been encouraged by BEC and its Board members, who were actively supporting the efforts of Power Windsun and others to install solar and other renewable systems/devices on individual commercial/residential properties.

Disclosing that he had initially approached BEC about supplying the Corporation with power from “a large scale 25 Mega Watt (MW) solar farm”, Mr Parker said BEC had indicated it was “not really ready” to entertain commercial-type proposals from independent power producers (IPPs).

BEC had 100 such proposals before it, but Mr Parker said the Corporation was more than supportive of individual renewable installations - provided there was no net metering, and less than 250 Kw of power was generated.

When it came to achieving the Government’s goal of the Bahamas generating 30 per cent of its renewable energy needs by 2030, Mr Parker told Tribune Business the effort was likely to start slow before ever-increasing energy costs generated the required momentum.

“I believe it’s going to start off where we’ll be lucky to get 5 per cent [from renewables] in five years, and then there’ll be a real focus on energy issues,” the Power Windsun president told Tribune Business.

With energy costs continuing to rise, “then I believe that we’ll get to that 25 per cent mark really quickly”.

Calling on the Government to pass renewable energy legislation “as soon as possible when it is ready”, Mr Parker said the Bahamas could develop an indigenous renewable energy industry featuring “several hundred” people working in system installation and maintenance.

It could also provide for numerous Bahamian-owned small and medium-sized companies, he added.

Power Windsun was looking to run training courses on the installation and maintenance of renewable/solar systems by summer 2013, Mr Parker said, as he encouraged more Bahamians to take the courses offered by the Bahamas Technical and Vocational Institute (BTVI) and become certified.

“We have trained five people in Nassau, and are going train four people different people in Marsh Harbour,” Mr Parker told Tribune Business. “We don’t want to have the same people doing the installations on different islands. We have identified a partner in Marsh Harbour.”