Dr Jeffrey Steynor suggests Bermuda’s renewable energy future lies in supplying the entire electricity grid, not in creating ‘micro-grids’
Solar power. Energy from Bermuda’s abundant sunshine. A no-brainer when it comes to sustainable power sources, right?
Well, not quite.
A key question has arisen… to be on the national grid, or off the grid?
In a small country like ours, the power grid is already relatively small. If residents go off the grid, we lose economies of scale – and electricity rates go up.
The PLP’s election platform signaled possible amendments to energy laws that require mandatory connection to BELCO.
However, Dr Jeffrey Steynor, BELCO’s Director of Energy Transition, says ‘going off the grid’ has consequences for the rest of us.
Speaking to Gary Foster Skelton, he said “the long term will be that there is less people on the grid supporting the fixed costs of an island, generating electricity in the middle of the Atlantic.”
“I’ll give you an an analogy… You’ve got a car ship that comes to Bermuda… it costs $100,000 and there’s [100 cars] on it. Every car pays $1,000 for the ship. If now that ship comes to Bermuda and only has [50 cars] on it, you’re paying $2,000 per car for the ship.”
“When the cars leave the ship and they’re not part of the equation, it’s the same thing with the solar leaving the grid. It’s not part of the equation. Less energy sales with fixed cost leads to rising prices.”
GFS asked whether this may require a philosophical change.
“We have a number of retail companies selling rooftop solar”, GFS said. “A lot of people getting to rooftop solar are thinking, ‘I’m going to save money’.”
Dr Steynor responded, “I fully understand why people want the rooftop solar – doing better for the environment, they’re offsetting their costs… the fixed costs of running a grid have to be shared… how do we balance those costs in a more fair manner so that the people left on the grid, that can’t afford solar today, don’t incur excess costs?”
“…because you could be off the grid with solar, and you don’t pay anything to BELCO… until that one day in August where your batteries are dead, and ‘oh, give me some power’.”
“So really, BELCO becomes a very cheap backup unless we adjust that cost structure.”
WATCH the full report above.
