A LEADING INDUSTRIALIST says his photovoltaic company is facing imminent closure as the stage is being set for the collapse of the Barbadian-owned alternative energy industry in favour of foreign interests.
Founder and chairman of Williams Industries, Ralph “Bizzy” Williams, whose Williams Solar has produced 17.2 million kWhrs of electricity from the sun, is charging that the door is being opened for the monopoly Canadian-owned Barbados Light & Power (BL&P) “to own all of the future alternative energy installations”.
“The BL&P rate structure allows them to make a guaranteed return on their investment and they will get to increase prices automatically as the price of oil increases,” Williams said yesterday in a statement to the media, “but the [Barbados Renewable Energy Association (BREA) members] are saddled with having to sell all of the electricity they produce at a fixed ‘temporary’ price that is insufficient to repay the bank finance with no possibility of any increase if the price of oil increases.” (AB)
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