Necessity is said to be the mother of invention. Those who are over the age of 30 may recall the days when a large metal container full of water placed in the open yard provided a reliable source of warm water for bathing at no cost.
In its crudest form, that was our first connection with renewable energy although we probably did not recognise it as such then. The fuel crisis of the early 1970s drove home to all, poor and better off alike, that the sun was indeed an important source of energy which could be harnessed to provide energy which was of immediate domestic use on a national scale.
Thus was the solar water energy business created here. We were international pioneers in this area, and the work of Father Andrew Hatch and Christian Action for Development in the Caribbean (CADEC) must be given credit for providing moral and financial encouragement to the young entrepreneur James Husbands. He was the original entrepreneur who dared to go where no one had previously gone in developing a workable feasible and attractive unit for installation in our houses and commercial buildings.
We owe a great deal to the mix of ingenuity and pointed development assistance at a time when the national interest coincided with individual need.
We also make bold to say that the national interest once again demands that we develop renewable energy – including but not exclusively related to solar energy – in the better management of our economy as it relates to the production of energy and the conservation of foreign exchange.
A penny saved is a penny earned is particularly applicable to small open economies such as ours, where popular demands for improved standards of living may outstrip the foreign exchange with which to purchase those higher standards.
We declare an interest in this matter, having recently installed and launched a 100 kilowatt solar photovoltaic energy system. But just as the national interest demands that Barbados develops its tourism and international financial sectors; so also the savings on renewable energy, both in foreign exchange and other collateral costs, compel the inclusion of all applicable forms of renewable energy in national economic planning.
So we are encouraged by the words of the Minister of Business Donville Inniss who declared at our launch that the State was encouraging the energy sector through a range of tax concessions and had also secured project financing for industry players from international agencies.
Any incentives should recognise that there has to be some policy linkages between alternative energy and the Barbados Light & Power as the main producer of fossil-based energy.
This country can build on its pioneering status in the renewable energy industry and every effort must be made to ensure that we have a clean, reliable, efficient system which can to help fuel vital aspects of our economic development.