Government departments and institutions accounted for up to $11 billion, or approximately $880 million monthly, in electricity costs last year – nearly 15 per cent of the total amount of electricity consumed annually in Jamaica.
Prime Minister Bruce Golding and Energy and Mining Minister James Robertson, who disclosed this information during a workshop staged last Thursday at the Knutsford Court Hotel in New Kingston, cited government agencies and departments, as well as public schools and hospitals, among the primary consumers.
Oil accounts for nearly 40 per cent of the country’s total import bill.
Golding said Jamaica, which has one of the world’s highest energy-intensive ratings, was also one of the most inefficient users of electricity.
“We use 20,000 BTUs (British thermal units) to produce one US dollar of output of value. The global average is less than quarter of that.
“We waste energy, and Jamaica’s economic future cannot be secured unless we address this problem in a fundamental way,” the prime minister lamented.
Golding said the Government, through the energy and mining ministry, had developed four significant platforms – the national energy, national renewable energy, national energy from waste as well as the energy conservation and efficiency policies – to address the issue.
However, the prime minister acknowledged that Jamaica experienced several challenges to fulfilling some objectives in the national energy policy, which called for increasing the mix of renewable energy sources.
“Right now, we’re somewhere near five per cent, and the policy requires we get up to 10 per cent by 2015 and 20 per cent by 2030. That’s ambitious and particularly challenging,” Golding admitted.
He said the challenges were even more pronounced when analysis examined Scandinavian countries, which were environmentally conscious and advanced in their use of renewable energy sources, albeit paying more for it.
“Renewable energy is not always cheaper energy, but they are prepared to pay more in order to get energy that is clean, green and sustainable. Our consumers can’t be asked to bear that burden, and that’s part of our problem,” Golding said.
Conservation important
The prime minister added that while any search for alternative energy sources also had to be cheaper – in order for them to be viable – conservation was important to sustainable energy management.
Golding accused Jamaicans of being price-insensitive when it came to energy conservation, citing motorists’ refusal to change fuel-consumption patterns during 2008 when oil prices rose as high as US$148 per barrel.
The Government’s 10 per cent GCT charge on the electricity bills of persons consuming more than 200 kilowatt-hours monthly in order to make up revenue shortfall had little effect on consumption patterns.
“The information I have from the JPS (Jamaica Public Service Company – the monopoly electricity provider) is that they haven’t even blinked. They pay the 10 per cent and consume the same amount of electricity,” said Golding.
THE Development Bank of Jamaica (DBJ) has dismissed reports that there have been no takers for the loans for renewable energy projects for the micro, small and medium-sized enterprise (MSME) sector.
However, it has admitted that clients have experienced challenges in taking up the loans, which are disbursed through approved financial institutions (AFI), such as commercial banks, merchant banks, credit unions and micro finance institutions and the National People’s Co-operative Bank.
Some $84 million in loans has been disbursed with another $40 million approved to eight clients under the programme since 2008, general manager of the DBJ’s AFI relationship division, Yvonne Lewars disclosed on November 10.
“There has been take up of the funds, but not as fast as we would like,” Lewars told Environment Watch.
The DBJ’s managing director Milverton Reynolds, stating that renewable energy was of “strategic importance” to the organisation, said the DBJ recently negotiated a grant of US$591,000 or approximately $51 million from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) dedicated to energy usage.
The grant would be used for three things, namely:
* to implement a study to determine the demand for energy in Jamaica;
* to support the training and certification of energy auditors in partnership with the University of Technology; and
* to launch a public education programme about the importance of renewable energy.
Describing the cost of energy as “too onerous and burdensome” for businesses in Jamaica, Reynolds said this ought not to be a huge problem because the island has “endless sunshine and wind”.
He was speaking at the opening of the Scientific Research Council’s 23rd science and technology conference and exposition at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel in Kingston on November 9.
However, responding to complaints that the loan approval process was too complex, Lewars explained that before an alternative energy loan is disbursed, an energy audit must be carried out. This involves assessing the energy usage of an entity or business and determining how much can be saved by making adjustments, such as changing bulbs, properly sealing windows, and improved ventilation to areas, even before a loan for alternative energy is disbursed.
Lewars said in an effort to improve the approval process, the DBJ had developed models for various sectors in order to reduce the need for MSMEs to pay for audits. Models had been done for poultry businesses and manufacturing, among other sectors.
“It’s a very specialist area. We are training our staff on the various alternative energy sources that can be used, but before we use alternatives, what can we do with the existing business to reduce cost? For example, a simple water heater in a hairdressing business can greatly reduce the energy supply chain,” she said.
In the meantime, the DBJ said it was developing better relationships with AFIs and meeting with business persons to make the applications more acceptable.
Former energy minister Clive Mullings has been among persons calling for the DBJ to disburse alternative energy loans itself, instead of wholesaling them though AFIs.
The loans provide up to $15 million or 90 per cent financing to clients at 9.75 per cent interest.
(CNN) — The midterm elections made it clear that Americans want a government that works for the people.
The 112th Congress will be faced with a choice: Work with the president and the people to deliver results, or pursue an obstruction agenda that will leave individuals and businesses with an even less sustainable economy and future than they face today.
If Congress chooses the collaboration path, members can tackle one issue that will enhance our national security, create jobs and help stabilize the climate –an issue with bipartisan roots that touches every corner of this nation: clean energy.
Our nation’s energy challenges are pressing and immediate. Unlike countries in Asia and Europe, the United States has neglected to join the global clean energy marketplace. We have no long-term clean energy plan, and so we have few domestic clean energy technologies or industries. While the world surges ahead, we risk being left behind, dependent on yesterday’s energy solutions to solve today’s energy challenges.
We know what steps to take. We must reduce our dependence on oil. The transportation sector alone is 95 percent dependent on oil. American taxpayers spend from $500 million to $1 billion a day on foreign oil, 39 percent of which is imported from “dangerous or unstable” nations, according to a Truman National Security Project report.
We must redouble our efforts to pass national clean energy and efficiency standards to meet our energy needs using homegrown, low-carbon sources. In turn, these actions will lower costs to consumers, create jobs, and spur an export market for innovative energy technologies.
We must use public dollars and the government’s credit enhancement power wisely, to leverage private capital for clean energy research, development, production, transmission, storage and deployment.
We must confront climate change, which jeopardizes our economic prosperity by leaving us acutely vulnerable to increased water shortages, widespread drought and floods, and food insecurity.
We can solve these problems. If the United States adopts a progressive energy strategy that combines market creation, financing for new industries and technologies, and infrastructure development, we can end our dependence on dirty fossil fuels, protect public health, and provide a solid foundation for economic growth and prosperity.
Even without comprehensive climate and clean energy legislation, the next Congress can take concrete steps to strengthen the U.S. market for clean energy, providing critical stability and certainty for investors, business, and consumers. These polices have all previously been introduced in the House or Senate, with bipartisan and business support. None will contribute significantly to the federal deficit.
Congress can:
— Spur clean energy innovation, manufacturing, deployment, and export through an ambitious renewable electricity standard, extensions of the successful Treasury grant program (1603) and Section 48c manufacturing tax credit, and by establishing a Clean Energy Deployment Administration (CEDA, or “Green Bank“) to leverage private sector investment for the deployment of clean energy.
— Encourage home and business owners to invest in energy efficiency and boost employment in the beleaguered construction sector by passing HOME STAR and Building Star. Those programs would reward consumers for installing energy-efficient equipment.
— Increase the $75 million liability cap for offshore oil damages, and pass other measures to enhance the accountability of oil exploration companies and give these companies an incentive to conduct their operations more safely.
The United States can and must also act on the international stage to limit the consequences of climate change and enhance our national security. Congress can show a commitment to the U.S. goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, take concrete steps to reverse widespread deforestation that contributes 18 percent of these emissions globally, and provide short-term financing to allow the poorest countries in the world to adapt to the impacts of climate change.
This is not a partisan agenda. The midterm elections reaffirmed that the clean energy agenda is a positive political agenda. In California, voters overwhelmingly supported the nation’s only cap-and-trade policy even in the face of a well-financed attack led by a coalition of out-of-state fossil fuel industries. In defeating Proposition 23, California voters across the political spectrum forcefully chose new technologies and new jobs over a retreat to last century’s polluted air and fossil fuel dependence — showing broad bipartisan support for the most comprehensive emissions reduction measures the country has ever seen.
Co-chairman of the “No on 23” campaign, former Secretary of State George Shultz said it best: “Those who wish to repeal our state’s clean energy laws through postponement to some fictitious future are running up the white flag of surrender to a polluted environment.”
In Michigan, voters elected Gov. Rick Snyder, who campaigned as a “good green Republican” who believes that “Michigan needs to be a leader in the innovative movement toward alternative and cleaner energy.”
The clean energy economy is here for the long term. This Congress must decide if America will lead it.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the writers.
Adding another extracurricular to the checklist, Google is investing in a “mammoth” offshore wind farm along the Atlantic seaboard. The search giant is taking a 37.6 percent equity stake in the project, which will connect 6,000 megawatts of offshore turbines (or roughly 60 percent of the wind energy built in the U.S. last year). The project is called the Atlantic Wind Connection (AWC) and will connect wind turbines across a 350-mile stretch from New Jersey to Virginia. Here’s what we know about the project and why Google is undertaking it:
