By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

The Government is teaming with the Carbon War Room (CWR) to invite Bahamian and international companies to submit proposals for a collective 20 Mega Watts (MW) worth of solar farms on several Family Island, in a bid to eliminate exorbitant energy subsidies.

    Solar farms are being targeted for Eleuthera, Andros, Cat Island, Acklins, Bimini, Inagua, Crooked Island, Exuma and Long Island, as part of the Government’s partnership with the Washington-based non-governmental organisation (NGO).

Christopher Burgess, CWR’s operations manager for islands,  told Tribune Business that the 20 MW goal was an aggregation of all the solar farms to be constructed.

“It’s really a win-win scenario. Right now, the understanding is that the Family Islands are subsidised to a great degree, somewhere between 20 and 30 cents per kilowatt hour (KWh),” he said.

“The goal of the RFP process is to find firms that we know have a solid track record, that can install the capacity needed to first stabalise, and then lower, the cost. Where we get is a matter of the request for proposals (RFPs) going out and seeing where that price is in the market. The goal is to get it under the current subsidised rate. We would like to be in the low 20’s or high teens [per KWh], but we will have to see what the RFP brings.”

  The Minister of the Environment and Housing, Kenred Dorsett, said: “We wanted to make sure that we did not have  a concentrated focus on some of the larger or more developed islands within our archipelago.

“There is a significant concentration on the southern islands. That is strategic for us because we also know that the cost of transporting fuel to those Family Islands is incredibly expensive.”

    Mr Dorsett added: “In addition to the Family Islands, BAMSI has also been earmarked as a facility that will go green and, with that in mind, we have earmarked approximately 2 MW of power for that facility.

“I think it will be a scalable project and, while we will not venture to install 2 MW from the outset, as it evolves and as its facilities continue to expand, we would be able to provide capacity of up to 2 MW of power.”

    Mr Dorsett said the final component of the Government’s MOU with CWR calls for ‘pay as you go’ metering, which he said could be advantageous with regard to helping to curb the Bahamas Electricity Corporation’s (BEC) $100 million-plus receivables issues.

“In all of the data we have been able to reach in our ministry, pay as you go metering has had a significant impact on those home owners that have the technology because they are more cognisant of the energy that they consume,” Mr Dorsett said.

“We  think that it is a critical component of the energy efficiency and energy conservation mandate to promote pay as you go metering. The Carbon War Room will be advising us on how best we can deploy that particular pilot programme.”

The Government has signed an MOU with CWR, which was founded by Virgin Group chief executive, Sir Richard Branson.

This ‘solidifies’ the Bahamas’ commitment to join CWR’s 10-island challenge. CWR launched the ‘10 island challenge’ in 2012 in an effort to reduce the dependency of small island developing states (SIDS) on fossil fuels, working with engineering firms specialising in alternative energy to promote sustainable energy and attract foreign investment.