The Tribune

THE predictable mid-month e-mail from BPL landed in my inbox. Trying to ignore its presence, I continued working, aware it was sitting there, waiting to be opened. As usual, I was slightly curious but knowing it would set me back I weighed the hope for a miracle against the dread of knowing it was summer (the bedroom air conditioning was running at night) and the sinking feeling the bill was probably going to be a little higher than last month’s which was bad enough.

First, I have to confess that I tell you all this background because I am a fanatic about paying bills.

Back to the bill. The clock ticks and the bill with the big blue BPL sits in the inbox, unopened. Minutes pass and finally I cannot take the suspense any longer.

I take a deep breath, double click on the all too familiar address noreply@bplco. And then I nearly drop whatever I was holding or not holding or thinking about holding as time stood still and I inhaled the largest GULP of my adult life. More than $750 for a single month, nearly a 45% increase over the month before. Insane, I thought. Surely, I misread the document or they sent me someone else’s bill by mistake. I checked. The name was right, account number correct. I opened a second bill, one I handle for a physically challenged individual whose expenses I manage. And GULP again. A year ago, his bill was less than $50 a month. The cottage where he lives is tiny. True, his sister moved in this year, but still – a fivefold increase. The NIB disability benefit he receives is now less than his power bill. What is he supposed to live on?

I called friends. “Did you get your BPL bill?” I asked before remembering to inquire about their health. “Omigod,” was their nearly universal reply. “Two thousand,” said one. “Seventeen hundred,” said another, a normally gentle soul, who puffed up his chest and shouted at his three children to turn off the a/c and open the windows.

But we don’t have a/c in our house, only split units in the bedrooms, and it’s only the two of us at home, and we’re at work during the day. There’s no one there. How, pray tell, can a one-month bill be $750+?

All this personal stuff is more than a mini financial pity party. This is serious stuff with serious implications for a nation that a) has to worry about keeping a lot of people at or below the poverty line reasonably satisfied so they do not revolt and so their health is not endangered and b) wants to attract investment and knows that the production and distribution of energy at a reasonable cost is one of the major factors influencing where to invest.

As individuals, we can complain about the high cost of electricity, but somehow we will manage to come up with the money to cover it. We will grumble but we will carry on.

For industry, the high cost of power is not a matter of grumbling. Next to labour, the cost of energy can be the most significant factor in operations. Consistency of delivery, quality and cost of energy can make the difference in deciding whether to invest, expand, renew and re-energize or walk away altogether. It’s the single factor that can take a product or offering to where price elasticity gives way to price bust. Alone, the cost of energy has the distinctive power to make or break business success or failure.

In light manufacturing, an area The Bahamas claims to want to develop, proper management of energy is absolutely critical.

In the hospitality industry, particularly where older hotels compete against newer properties with more energy efficient components, the cost of power can dictate whether survival at an acceptable price point per accommodation is even realistic.

In courting desirable, sustainable business, we remind investors of the country’s political stability, our proximity to or ease of access to major ports or cities and markets, our relative safety and personal security, but those features are ‘attaboys’ up against the realistic cost of doing business in the key areas of labour and energy. And in a country where ease of doing business is more goal than reality, cost is critical.

So what do we do about it besides GULP, complain and exclaim?

We must make green energy reasonable and accessible. That means making cheap financing available for solar installation for residential and commercial properties. That means creating community solar farms funded by a combination of grants, financial institutions and government. That means looking at other renewables including wind farms and harnessing the power of the Gulfstream.

You may have noticed this week that the Small Business Development Centre (SBDC) circulated a survey on electric vehicle use, the same week the first company to grasp the potential of the e-vehicle market got ready to announce its purchase of new premises, developing a site probably more than ten times larger than its current location. There is money to be made in the renewables market, in financing green energy and in moving the country forward in construction methods that are revolutionizing how we build and look at living in a climate-change challenged world. These aren’t buzzwords anymore. These are harsh realities that hit us when we open a bill from BPL and they will find other ways of stabbing us if we continue to do what we have always done and kick the bucket down the road.

What to do is not always clear. While the debate over white roofs continues – do they heat up earth while keeping the interior of a house or structure cooler – there is no question that they reduce the demand for power.

Even if we don’t have all the answers, we know we have some when it comes to energy. Whatever it takes, the time to act was yesterday. We are not merely grumbling over the cost of electricity. We are being fried by the implications of planning our tomorrows with an antiquated fossil fuel power generation system that fails to answer the most important demand of all – to find sustainable building and living methods that reduce the threat of climate change. If we do not, we will pay with a currency far greater than the dollars it takes to pay BPL. We will pay with our lives.