By ANNELIA NIXON

Tribune Business Reporter

anixon@tribunemedia.net

Harbour Island hotels yesterday reacted coolly to suggestions that local businesses and residents help finance a new energy company to provide reliable power to the island.

Following St George’s Cay Power Company’s (SGCPC) announcement that it is still willing to supply mainland Eleuthera and Harbour Island, The Rock House’s managing partner, Henry Rolle, argued that the upfront costs and other expenses to fund the project mean “it’s just not viable”.

“I can tell you that I’ve actually done my research with that because my mentor, he had quite a few conversations with myself and two other individuals in terms of trying to find other alternatives like that,” Mr Rolle said. “The alternative… with hotel owners coming together, that would lose us money...

“Just going over the numbers, it just wouldn’t make any sense because it’s the initial upfront cost, plus cost of generation and so on. Another company coming in, I guess we’d be willing to see what they would have to offer, to see if, indeed, they would actually save us money along with providing reliable service. It’s a weird trade-off. 

“You have to be realistic in kind of understanding who’s able to help fund the cost. There aren’t many. I can count maybe four in Eleuthera, and the ones that are able to, I think they sort of set the temporary generation up for themselves just by getting back-up generators,” Mr Rolle added.

“But, honestly, we did the numbers. We crunched the numbers, and we looked at the feasibility. Eleuthera is big, much bigger than Harbour Island, but again, in terms of the businesses that are able to put in the equal amount needed to propose that idea, it’s just not viable.”

Lee Prosenjak, Valentine’s Resort and Marina’s managing director, said if an interested energy company already had some funds secured  - and a signed agreement with other businesses to help finance the remainder of the project’s cost - he could see himself making an investment.   

 “Am I putting up more than what I pay on a monthly basis to then let this company get blocked by bureaucratic methods, or they don’t have the land that they think they do, or that they didn’t get enough money,” Mr Prosenjak asked. “In investing, my rule of thumb is always to be the last money in. That’s just smart investing, right?

“I don’t want to put the money in and then never see a return on that investment. But if they had signed agreements with everybody else on the island, or they were able to raise, make up numbers... If it was a $25m project, for example, and they said, ‘Hey, we need everybody to chip in. We’ve got every, you know, we’ve got $24m already in on this project. Here it is in the bank account’, I’d help them raise that last $1m or figure that out. So that could happen. But I’m not going to put the $1m in.”

Morris Pinder, St George’s president and managing director, told Tribune Business that about five years ago, when the company was approached by Harbour Island hoteliers to aid in providing reliable power to the island, the idea was to sell shares to fund the company. He added that hotel operators in Harbour Island at the time “were willing to put money into it to see that it works”.

Ben Simmons, the owner of Little Island Hotels, consisting of the Ocean View Club, The Other Side and The Farm, supports St George’s putting its plan into action. He added: “I would be more confident in them, certainly, than a foreign entity. I would have greater confidence in, I think, a local company that is used to the logistics, is used to the elements, and has a track record, to be frank.

“And I think that model works. I mean, I think the Spanish Wellians have proved that that model works in Spanish Wells, and there’s a vested interest in making things work. But my understanding is, Outlier is certainly trying to do the same thing in terms of soliciting funding from local resources where you can buy shares in it. We don’t know the technology.

“So I would definitely be supportive of, and would be interested in, seeing it happen. But part of the issue is generation is one component, but it’s also the distribution. And I think as far as what’s happening in Harbour Island, there’s issues with distribution,” Mr Simmons said.

“It’s getting the power to Harbour Island, one, and then once it’s on Harbour Island, we have a very sort of antiquated pull system with shaky transformers. So all of that is part of the parcel that needs to be fixed when we’re talking about power in Harbour Island.” Outlier Energy is one of the bidders that won the competition to provide renewable energy to Harbour Island.

Mr Rolle added that BPL has been “addressing a lot of concerns” recently. “They’ve jumped ahead of time and explained outages maintenance, which is good, so kind of gave us a little bit of time to prepare whether or not that’d be having our generators run 24/7, or whatever, to help them with the strain,” he said.

“But so far so good with what they’re doing. And again, in terms of us, the hotel operators, getting together and essentially starting a plant, no.”