The Barbados Renewable Energy Association (BREA) has dismissed suggestions that the island’s national energy policy could turn out to be another “Ponzi scheme” if some changes are not made.
Responding to the charge levelled by the Barbados Association of Professional Engineers (BAPE), president of BREA Khalid Grant took issue with the contention that the current feed-in-tariff (FIT) arrangement for solar energy was unsustainable and likely to negatively impact Barbados Light & Power (BL&P) revenues as more people are added.
In a statement issued last Friday, BAPE president Colonel Trevor Browne warned that as more people are added to the FIT arrangement, “the only source of the utility’s income will then be those who are left without photovoltaic systems”
“These are likely to be the least able to pay the increased rates required to pay the early investors, and so the scheme will collapse. Carried to its ultimate logical conclusion, when all Barbadians have installed PV systems on their roofs and are paying minimum bills and awaiting returns from their FIT contracts, the utility will be required to create money ‘from nothing’ to pay these investors, as well as to cover their own operating expenses.
“Obviously, investors will lose the income needed to repay their investment loans, and perhaps even lose their loan security, such as their mortgaged homes,” he warned.
Browne also criticised the implementation process of the island’s national energy…
