People with rooftop solar panels got their power back almost immediately. The ‘entire neighbourhood benefits’, one resident said.
The morning after Hurricane Melissa tore through Jamaica, Jennifer Hue, a retired tax auditor living close to hard-hit Treasure Beach, woke up to devastation. Her mango, breadfruit and papaya trees were lost, their tops snapped off by 180-mile-per-hour winds. There was water everywhere.
But her roof was intact, and just as importantly, so were the solar panels she had installed two years ago. Most of her neighbors didn’t have electricity. But she did.
Neighbors began stopping by to charge their phones, to take a cool drink from the refrigerator, to message loved ones to let them know they were safe. Ms. Hue is still hosting a cousin and his mother, as well as two medical students from the local university, whose accommodations were damaged.
“The wind was like a tornado, and water came through every crevice,” Ms. Hue said. “But we didn’t lose any solar panels, and the next morning, the sun was shining bright and early,” she said. “We had our power back.”
A small but vibrant market for rooftop solar panels in Jamaica has long been seen as a promising way to wean the nation off imported fossil fuels. The country is reliant on oil and gas from abroad for its power plants, which not only is polluting but also makes Jamaica’s electricity some of the priciest in the world per kilowatt-hour.
But now, solar power is also seen as a way for Jamaica and other nations in one of the world’s most hurricane-prone regions to become more resilient to ever-intensifying storms.
Rooftop solar has grown significantly in Jamaica over the past decade, from less than 1.4 megawatts in 2015 to nearly 65 megawatts in 2023, a significant amount for a small island, experts say. Overall, solar and other forms of renewable energy made up about 10 percent of Jamaica’s power generation in 2023.
The hope is that growth will start to cut down on Jamaica’s dependence on imported oil and liquefied natural gas, which is shipped in tankers to the island nation, at a time when ports, refineries, power plants and transmission lines are becoming vulnerable to extreme weather worsened by a warming planet.
Wide swaths of the country remain without electricity after Hurricane Melissa hit Jamaica as a Category 5 storm last week, killing at least 32 people and destroying an untold number of buildings and homes. “You’re talking about restoring a very lengthy, complex and expensive infrastructure,” said David Gumbs, an expert on energy in the Caribbean at the Rocky Mountain Institute and the former chief executive of the Anguilla Electricity Company.
“With solar, you maintain some ability to continue generating electricity” without relying on hundreds of miles of damaged power lines, he said. “And in the Caribbean context, when the hurricane passes, if I have rooftop solar and batteries and if I can keep my refrigerator running, my entire neighborhood benefits.”
The solar panels must survive the high winds, of course. Jason Robinson, who runs Solar Buzz, an installer based in Kingston, Jamaica’s capital, has been surveying the damage this week, navigating roads on the west side of the island strewed with downed trees and power lines. “With nearly 200 mile-per-hour winds, you’re in the universe’s hands,” Mr. Robinson said.
But so far, none of his nearly 300 clients have reported extensive damage, he said. Panels installed flat against the roof, in particular, fared well. Some rooftop solar owners have taken to removing their panels ahead of strong winds. Many were already back online.
“As long as you install to code, and your roof stays on, you have a chance of surviving extremely long power outages,” Mr. Robinson said. “Resiliency is becoming even more important than lowering your bill.”
Solar panels remain beyond the reach of many Jamaicans, but prices are falling rapidly as Chinese gear floods into the market. In recent years the Jamaican government has also started providing a solar income-tax credit, and banks have begun to offer more financing. Jamaica’s electric utility also now compensates solar households for excess electricity they put back into the grid.
That’s helping Jamaica make progress toward its goal of generating 50 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030.
Annabelle Todd manages an oceanfront guest villa on Treasure Beach, where two dozen panels and battery storage were installed two-and-a-half years ago. The panels survived, apart from one that was punctured by flying debris. She had electricity and air-conditioning the morning after the storm, much to the envy of her neighbors.
The system wasn’t cheap, costing about $30,000. But it has virtually eliminated electricity bills that used to top $1,000 a month, because her guests “would run that A.C. morning and noon and night,” she said. “Honestly, we could pay it off in two, three years,” she said.
More than that, not losing power has been a relief, she said. It’s the second year in a row that the seaside community, known for its black sand beaches, has been ravaged by a hurricane.
“Now everyone who runs villas here wants solar. I already see solar suppliers driving up and down Treasure Beach,” Ms. Todd said. “They got hit two years in a row, and they’re not going to fool around anymore.”
Twila-Mae Logan, deputy executive director of the University of the West Indies’ business school, spent about $20,000 to install panels at her Kingston home two years ago. The capital was spared the worst of Hurricane Melissa, but even then, her neighborhood lost power, making her home one of the few with electricity. Ahead of the storm, her brother and her niece rushed to her home to store food in her freezer so it wouldn’t spoil.
“We’re a third-world country and our government is significantly under-resourced, but I really do think our government has put some fair degree of priority behind solar,” she said. “Most people would go solar, save for the expense.”
Leaders across the Caribbean have demanded more financial assistance from the world’s rich countries to help Jamaica contend with the consequences of climate change. Caribbean island nations will suffer the most from climate change, despite being least responsible for the greenhouse gas emissions that are warming the world, they say. The International Monetary Fund says the region requires about $100 billion in economic investment to build resilience to climate-fueled disasters.
Ms. Hue, the retired tax auditor, doesn’t expect to quickly make back the tens of thousands of dollars she paid for her solar panels in 2023. But “it was never about that,” she said. “It was about having very reliable power, and having peace of mind.”
“We were just fortunate to have the sun out the next morning,” she said.
The New York Times
