The LDC Solar Energy Belt
At a previous conference, Vincent Adams had expressed his concern for energy market dynamics and its implications for the Caribbean. A great majority of islands do not produce petroleum, and their economies are based on tourism; drastic increases in the price of crude oil would have grave economic impacts. The situation is worse when we consider the need to constantly transfer petroleum in tankers for nearly all of its energetic and transportation requirements , as is the case with Puerto Rico. The combination of these factors creates a frankly alarming scenario.
Nonetheless, as the speakers in the successful conference by ACEER demonstrated, there is no reason for which the dependency on petroleum could not be drastically reduced. After all, the entire Caribbean resides in the tropical sun belt, with an abundance of solar energy. Installing photovoltaic cells on ALL the roofs of every house and building would feed electricity into the grid precisely during the peaks of greatest demand--such as in the middle of the day during a hot summer. It turns out that the new "Saudi Arabia" was right under our noses all of the time, or actually above it: the roofs of our own homes. (It is a fallacy, shows Fernando Plá, to store this energy to be used later in the night; batteries go bad and require costly and complex system that are simply not cost-effective.)
These brilliant ideas, actually at a more advanced stage of implementation in Spain and Europe, require a drastic institutional-legal change in Puerto Rico, particularly in the relation between the electric company (AEE) and its customers. With net-metering, the actual resale of electricity back to the AEE is actually unfair to the common user. The AEE buys at 4 cents but sells at 17 cents; such is the way large corporations tend to operate. Nonetheless, aside from the legal obstacles as these--artificially created to benefit certain corporations, there is no valid reason not to substantially modify the existing electrical system on our island of Puerto RIco.
The same could be said for the Caribbean, and the great majority of less developed nations that principally reside in the tropics.