I am about to graduate with a degree in electrical engineering and am
planning to specialize in sustainable and renewable sources of energy.
Admittedly, I haven’t quite got to the professional engineer status yet
but most days I try and relate my studies to The Bahamas. I must give
BEC and the Bahamian government credit. Running a power generation and
distribution system is not easy. It is even more difficult when you
consider the geographic make up of The Bahamas.
I would rather make a comparison of our electrical grid to that in
North America, specifically Canada, since we derive our electrical code
from them and not the UK or Europe. The grids are based on a
100-year-old mindset. The old idea was that there would be a few large
generation stations to power a distribution network for a region. Now
the industry is trying to evolve that idea into multiple, smaller
generation sites that can alleviate the dependency and demand on central
power generators and possibly even feed excess energy into the grid.
The Bahamas has taken the old grid approach by developing an independent
power system on each island rather than trying to share resources. This
has resulted in 29 power stations on over 25 islands.
It’s easier said than done. A large portion - 55% - of the energy in
Ontario is generated by nuclear power. Nuclear power plants cannot be
turned off in an instant – look at what happened in Japan. Nuclear gets a
bad rap, which is too bad. It is very efficient and keeps the fuel
surcharge low. Unfortunately, nuclear plants generate far more than the
population of The Bahamas could ever demand so I will not be saying
anymore about them.
Now onto what Mr Humes was talking about in one of the morning newspapers recently
( http://bit.ly/A0fT4m ). He said:
“I know the high cost of energy is a major factor when doing
business in the country. We have to look at ways of reducing energy
costs. We need to introduce renewable energy sources like solar, hydro
and wind that all can be used to bring down the cost of doing business,”
You cannot just say that so simply since there are other costs to consider than just generation, but I’ll go with the flow.
So Mr Humes could suggest that we throw lots of money into wind power
and then we should have really cheap rates? Some of the highest energy
prices are in Europe. Denmark is known as the wind power capital of the
world. They cannot cope with the demand and their average price for
energy is ~$0.40 per kWh [1] with the majority of energy being supplied
by fossil fuels. Last time I checked, BEC was at $0.15 per kWh with a
fluctuating fuel surcharge that was below $0.40 per kWh.
Continuing
When you talk about a solar farm you cannot just consider the cost for
equipment, you have to remember that land in The Bahamas doesn’t come
cheap. The best solution that I see for a solar farm is Crown Land. Most
of that is in the Family Islands and this is the area where I think
energy could be harvested: from the Family Islands, like Andros, and
transmitted to New Providence via underwater high voltage transmission
lines which are costly to lay and could have a high environmental
impact. That being said, submarine high voltage transmission lines have
been laid throughout the world between islands and main lands. Closer to
home, the Virgin Islands are looking at the prospects of tying into the
Puerto Rico grid with underwater high voltage lines [2].
Wind—well , same idea. Wind turbine farms are self explanatory and
you have to consider the cost of the land and possible damage by
hurricanes. Offshore wind turbines are a great idea but are susceptible
to damage from severe swells regardless of the occurrence of
hurricanes. However, some environmentalists will tell you that recent
studies in Europe show that wind turbines are inducing migraines [3, 4]
in the nearby population as well as driving the wildlife away from areas
close to the farms. Next?
There are no rivers in The Bahamas to form a dam and the best
solutions so far are underwater turbine farms or shore pressure
housings. Underwater turbine farms—look above and apply water.
Considering marine wildlife, we could have the same negative impact as
wind farms since sound travels a lot better in water than it does in
air. You would also run the risk of boating traffic damaging the
equipment as well as the boat itself.
The shore housings are a promising new idea being engineered in
Scotland for remote communities to be self-sufficient. The idea is that a
wind turbine is forced to turn due to wave action forcing the air
pressure in the housing to flow back and forth. Again, if land on
populated areas wasn’t expensive enough for you, how much does ocean
front property cost now? But I do like the idea for smaller islands
looking for more self-sufficiency and harvesting energy from
uninhabitable cays surrounding popular islands.
I’ve quickly laid out the large generation sites for you but what
about a multitude of smaller sites? That is turning into the headache of
North America. I’m sure your readers will have heard of the smart grid
and this is where the idea starts. Everybody can, theoretically, have
his or her own power source and are no longer exclusively reliant on
their energy provider. However, it should be remembered that energy is
complicated. Feeding your excess energy back into the grid may be fine
for you but you could be affecting your neighbour’s service by inducing
harmonics, wrong phases, islanding and exceeding the limits for which
the power system was designed [4]. The new smart grid should fix this
but The Bahamas isn’t there yet.
I could go on forever. I applaud the Government for
reducing/eliminating the duty on solar equipment and leading the public
into the right direction but there needs to be more education on the
matter. You may be encouraged to know that BEC has formed a department
of renewable sources of energy and you could look at their Web site for
information about a solar system pilot project:
http://www.bahamaselectricity.
com/about/solarenergy.cfm.
I look forward to a cleaner, renewable Bahamas but it’s not going to happen by flipping a switch.
Footnotes:
1.
http://www.energy.eu/#
Domestic-Elec
2.
http://stcroixsource.com/
content/news/local-news/2010/
06/29/territory-study-linking-
power-grid-puerto-rico
3.
http://www.independent.co.uk/
environment/green-living/are-
wind-farms-a-health-risk-us-
scientist-identifies-wind-
turbine-syndrome-1766254.html
4.
http://www.savewesternny.org/
docs/pierpont_testimony.html
5.
http://www.hydroone.com/
Generators/Pages/
AvailableCapacity.aspx