yes i know. I am showing what the fourth estate has. Maybe the minister went announce approval before send across the documents.?

if we did that they would have been flying to T&T and jam all now :).

The late Pro Oliver Headley did a study which showed that Barbados because of it location had the highest radiance hitting terra firma in the world. It was about $33 per sq metre in cost saving if we embrace solar energy.

The ordinary Bajan here is the looser.BL&P is laughing all the way to the Bank. I wonder if this report was commisioned by BL&P and sanctioned by the non-elected in office, responsible for advising the elected. In 5,10 yrs. time Bajans should be able reflect on ‘what if!’ I believe more can be done at this time to increase the renewable fuel mixture for Barbados to become more INDEPENDENT on fossil fuel. Now is the time; tomorrow will be too late.The above article should have been looking to at atleast 50% plus ‘renewables’ in this climate.
The IDB is more concerned about a safe return on its investment.I can see BL&P’s fingerprint all over this document.BL&P has a right in safegaurding its interest; the government,s is to safeguard the people’s. The failure here is the government; the loosers are the people. An Island saturated with sunshine for the best part of the year, with tried and tested equipment readily available. This brings me now to ask if the government present and past have got an alternative when they have allowed only one provider of electricity to dominate for so long? The winners in this are the lenders and BL&P.A post above stated how Germany with a fraction of the sunshine is investing so much in solar.We are aware most of Europe and the Middle East are heavy investors; China also. I,ve just spoken to a friend in Australia and it’s amazing what the government is doing in terms of solar. Canada which is a major exporter of fossil fuel is also excelling in solar PV.

.

I am looking for the Budget debate to set the stage for the unveiling of a bipartisan approach to what is clearly a National crisis where energy is concerned.

I fully expect members of both the parties to have been briefed and prepared to speak on the need to apply the funds for the good of the country.

I hope they do not overdo it though because it may cause people to lose interest.

I think that may explain the the silence.

I may have been too cynical.

Bush Tea has that effect.

I say the parties are waiting to roll out Government’s program on national TV so that maximum effect can be had and that is why everything has been so hush hush up to now.

As a country how do we measure progress?

One of the measuring sticks should be sustainability.

Professor Oliver St. Clair Headley was a person of boundless
enthusiasm and intense curiosity – characteristics which served him well as a
researcher and when combined with his ready humour, commanded attention
in his lecture hall and classroom. He felt he had a particular responsibility to
his students, both under- and post-graduate, in the quality of his teaching and
in regularly scheduling time for them no matter how busy he might have been.
Oliver joined the staff at the St. Augustine campus of the University of the
West Indies (UWISA) in October 1967, after completing a Ph.D. degree in
Inorganic Chemistry at University College, London. His was a questioning,
exploratory approach to most problems and this attitude fuelled his desire to
engage in meaningful research.

The sophisticated instruments needed for his
research in Inorganic Chemistry were at the time not available at St.
Augustine, nor did it seem that they would be in the foreseeable future. Oliver
saw himself as having two choices – he would say “either I go back to the cold
or I take up research in some other area of interest”. On a hot Whit-Monday
1969 while talking to Basil Springer about a latent interest in solar energy
and his puzzlement at the fact that so little attention was paid to research in
this area in countries such as ours, the realization dawned that he had found
his additional other research area.

It seems incredible now to recall that at the time, the phrase ‘solar energy’ had
little meaning to most persons even academics, and the question “Solar who?
What’s that? Most often followed a declaration of his new research interest.
This changed completely over the next decade as the oil crisis of the seventies
and the burgeoning interest in alternative energy sources meant that even the
primary school student was blithely talking about solar energy.

His early research spanned two aspects of solar thermal – solar distillation
and solar heating, and then expanded to include post-harvest applications in
seed, crop and timber drying. Some timber drying installations combined 2
solar with other energy sources such as biomass. His emphasis was on designs
that substantially improved functional efficiency. At first he avoided
photovoltaics, having concerns about their efficiency and price but decades
later his work included the use of photovoltaic installations. He was attracted
to Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC), but reluctantly gave up the idea
when preliminary studies seemed to indicate that it was not suited to this
environment – a finding he questioned.

It was always a feature of Oliver’s work in alternative energy that he freely
shared the results of his research with any individual or community group
that requested it and would benefit from the applications e.g. stills for schools,
driers of various kinds for farmers; he was also willing to travel throughout
the Caribbean and Central America and work with farmers building units for
their use.

Renewable energy has had a long history in Barbados. After sugar was introduced to the island in the middle of the seventeenth century, the windmill soon followed, and at the height of their popularity they were five hundred and fifty five of them at sugar plantations across the island. Sugar cane bagasse was used as the fuel to concentrate the juice and produce sugar. Several hundred multi-bladed windmills, Afanmills@, were used to pump water, but most of these have been dismantled. At the moment, the main renewable energy sources are sugar cane bagasse and solar water heaters which contribute about 15% of the island’s primary energy supply. Solar photovoltaic (PV) systems are being set up and currently about 37,000 watts peak (Wp) are in operation. Solar crop dryers and solar stills for producing distilled water are also employed. The government of Barbados would like to have renewable energy contribute 40% of the island’s primary energy by 2010. Projects under consideration include a 60 megawatt (MW) cogeneration plant to burn bagasse and fossil fuel, a 10MW waste combustion plant, 16MW in wind farms, 3MW of ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) plant, 2MW in distributed photovoltaic systems, and probably 0.5MW in wave power.
http://www.terryally.com/library/oheadleyrenewable.html

@Chris

There is a lot about Barbados’ reluctance throughout the years to diversify our energy supply.

It is interesting to note Minister responsible for energy issuing an announcement on the pilot spoken to in social media exposed on Sunday.

Let us keep on the god fight.

Colin Hudson once told me he estimated the horse power generated by those old windmills was equivalent to a lawn mower, about 3.75hp.

1hp = 735 -750 watts.

Thus, less than the 5kW household solar system we looked at.

There were 500 plus windmills and crop lasted a lot longer.

Our output of sugar today is about what it was at the end of slavery of the order of 30,000 tons, even with all the technology available.

Or peak was over 200,000 tons in 1957 and 1967.

Steam made that possible.

The conversion from wind to steam started in the mid 1800’s and really got going at the end of the 19th century. The market demanded dry sugar. Centrifuges were required and the power to run them came from steam.

Some plantations continued with wind but eventually central factories did all the grinding. Wind was still being used at least up to the 1930’s I seem to remember being told.

Steam gave us sugar output and sugar output gave us the sugar terminal and of course the Deep Water Harbour.

The sugar factories once started were marvels of self sufficiency in both water to produce the steam (extracted from cane) and fuel (bagasse) to fire the boilers to produce the steam.

We really are a shadow of what we once were.

@David

Thank you very much for bringing these documents to public attention. They have been a great help to me in seeing what is going on in the RE industry in Barbados. Barbados will be on perfect track if more emphasis is also placed on water efficiency, energy efficient building practices and the use of information technology for more efficient processes. Thanks again…I am hoping to get myself back into the industry in Barbados very soon.

@Chris H

OTEC is a very interesting technology but in terms of efficiency it is very poor and very few places can actually exploit it viably, which is the main reason for its relative technological immaturity. Using deep sea cold water for air conditioning is by far more efficient thermodynamically, though as the report suggests it would require large investment and significant planning.

While we shift to a more sustainable energy system we have to remember that every conversion causes losses so avoiding conversions is key. Sunlight should be used for for lighting, heat for heating (or cooling), mechanical energy to move stuff (water pumping etc.) and energies converted to electricity when it is necessary (to run appliances, electronic devices, lighting at night etc.)

@RE Engineer

Good to see you around.

You need to thank BU family and friends for the sharing info.

Last night I was reading for the first time some comments on BU in mid 2008 on RE and Barbados’ seeming inability to take meaningful action on and meaningfully develop this area. The comments were mainly from Keith Headley, Oliver Headley’s son, ably assisted by David and a few others. It was amazing that the discourse on the topic is almost at the same stage today except that we now have the IDB project funded and little effort by Government to publicise it. There has been little development on the ground since then.

It seems that what we now need is a new RE champion in the mould of Oliver Headley. His son is extremely knowledgeable in the area but I’m not certain where he is these days and it is unclear if he could fit the bill. Another champion could be James Husbands, another one could be Roland Clarke, another could be whoever is heading up the CERMES project at Cave Hill (If it still exists in the form that it took in Oliver Headley’s time), another one could be a politician.

I still have that vision of Solar PV off-grid systems being on as many homes as there are now with solar water heaters and of numerous grid tied PV systems populating the roofs and lawns of a vast number of government and private sector businesses and of vastly increased utilisation by real entrepreneurs of other solar, wind, wave and such technologies throughout Barbados far in excess of the 29% utilization target aimed at by the IDB project. But nothing will happen without someone leading the fight.

I think that Government has to give some thought to setting up an extremely high-level post of Energy Czar and giving him/her all the power and financing necessary to push this thing; mash corns; lock horns successfully with the Minister of Finance, if necessary, all with the blessings of a powerful, proactive Prime Minister.

These parlous times demand no less.

I have some research from Prof Oliver Headley and it clearly shows we are being bulled by persons who fail to make a difference in our energy policy. Is it not strange that BWA the biggest Customer is not seeking to use alternative energy in the form of Wind Turbines of PV?

SUSTAINABLE ENERGY FRAMEWORK. A $1 million loan from the Inter-American Development Bank, acting as the Implementing Agency for the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) is for payments for goods, and consulting services to be procured under the project “Implementing Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Projects under the Sustainable Energy Framework for Barbados.” Refer to: Project No. GRT/FM-12075-BA. Bid BA-X1001. Deadline not specified.Details: Permanent Secretary (Energy). Ministry of Finance, Investments,

Telecommunication and Energy. Attn: Mr. Leighton Waterman. Special Projects Unit. Ground Floor, ICB Bldg. Roebuck St. Bridgetown, Barbados. Tel: (246) 435-2211, 435-0660. Fax: (246) 429-7489. E-mail: sefbarbados@yahoo.co.uk

The technology is out there people, are we looking for it?

MIT Unveils Solar Power System That Doesn’t Need Sunlight
by Timon Singh, 07/28/11
filed under: News, Renewable Energy, Solar Power

A solar energy system that doesn’t require sunlight is almost as bizarre as a tidal power system that doesn’t use water – however that’s exactly what researchers at MIT have cooked up. The team just unveiled a new photovoltaic energy conversion system that can be powered by heat, the sun’s rays, a hydrocarbon fuel, or a decaying radioisotope. The button-sized power generator that can also run three times longer than a lithium-ion battery of the same weight.
Read more: MIT Unveils Solar Power System That Doesn’t Need Sunlight | Inhabitat – Green Design Will Save the World

@Chris

On what basis do you refute the technology?

Is this MIT backing the claim?

@Chris

It is too early in the morning.

@Chris

And your asked on what basis you have labeled the research by a group at MIT bullshite.

Now be very discrete.