PUERTO RICO: Solar Enthusiasts Celebrate Life "Off the Grid"

Carmelo Ruiz

SAN JUAN, Apr 11 2005 (IPS) - The Caribbean island of Puerto Rico is blessed with abundant sunlight, yet its potential for solar energy remains largely untapped. Now, a small but growing number of pioneers are promoting the use of photovoltaic solar panels as part of a broader strategy of renewable energy and sustainable development.

One such pioneer is Emmanuel Perez, who provides consulting and design services to people interested in getting their homes off the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) grid and switching to solar energy.

Perez, who lives in the mountain town of San Sebastian, is a tireless advocate of renewable power sources and alternative energy policies.

”A person who builds a house far from the electric grid will see that alternative energy is more competitive than what PREPA offers,” said Perez. He provided a concrete example in the nearby town of Camuy, where a customer of his had built a house over 100 metres away from the nearest power line.

PREPA asked for 12,000 dollars for the connection. Instead, Perez set up solar panels with a one-time cost of 13,000 dollars. ”He's actually saved money. That was five years ago and he has not paid a single utility bill.”

Renewable energy is thriving around the globe. Worldwide annual revenues from equipment and installation are expected to climb from 4.7 billion dollars in 2003 to 30.8 billion dollars in 2013, according to Clean Edge, a San Francisco-based market research firm.

Solar energy technology is now about 10 times as expensive as fossil fuel systems for generating large amounts of electricity, according to the U.S. Sandia National Laboratories.

But electricity-generating solar panels, which cost 100 dollars per watt in 1976, now sell for under 3 dollars per watt, and costs are expected to continue declining at a rate of five percent per year even if there are no new technology breakthroughs.

”Solar and wind power are the fastest growing energy sources in the world, with the installed capacity of solar power increasing seven-fold since the mid-1990s, and wind energy capacity growing by more than a factor of 13,” the Washington-based Worldwatch Institute said in 2004.

”These 10-year annual growth rates, of 22 percent and 30 percent, respectively, are closer to the realm of computers and telecommunications than the single-digit growth rates common in today's energy economies.”

But if solar power in geographically isolated homes and communities is an attractive investment, in suburbia it is a whole different game.

”In urbanised areas the cost of the utility connection is divided among the costs of the houses and is hidden in the mortgage,” Perez explained. ”So you do not know how much it cost. We cannot compete there because people have no way of knowing how much their connection cost.”

The burning of fossil fuels by PREPA and its private contractors also entails serious environmental costs. ”Their power plants pollute the air and are a health hazard to people living downwind,” Perez added.

He said that Puerto Rico's south coast has a total of four power plants -- two thermoelectric PREPA facilities that run on oil, one operated by the Ecoelectrica conglomerate running on natural gas, and another one run by the AES corporation, which burns coal.

All these power generators are a peril to the Guanica Dry Forest downwind. This forest, considered by environmentalists and scientists to be a unique natural wonder, is affected by acid rain from the energy facilities.

Perez stresses the importance of education in moving society toward sustainability and conscious consumption. He urges the government's department of education to include in its science curriculum some information on how to reduce energy use and waste.

”Consumers must demand the most energy-efficient appliances. When buying a refrigerator, for example, there's information available from the U.S. Department of Energy on how much energy it uses,” he said.

”And the differences can be enormous. There are 15 cubic feet fridges that use 900 watts in a day, and others with the same dimensions that use 2,200 watts daily.”

”And throw away those incandescent light bulbs! The initial investment in fluorescent ones is expensive, but a 15-watt fluorescent bulb is as bright as a 60-watt incandescent bulb.”

The island's Department of Natural Resources has an Energy Office that is supposed to promote sustainable energy, although some activists are not impressed with their work.

The government might not be listening, but concerned individuals and non-governmental organisations are. The offices of Casa Pueblo, a local grassroots group that won the 2002 Goldman Environmental Prize, are powered by solar panels installed by Perez.

”Activating this system is a way of furthering our aspirations to make this house more free than it was before,” said Alexis Massol, Casa Pueblo's director. ”We feel we have reached a new level of freedom with solar energy. We are breaking with dependence and moving towards self-reliance.”

”The important thing is that this change to solar energy is showing people that this is a workable and environmentally sound alternative,” adds Casa Pueblo staffer Tinti Deya. ”Lots of people are now asking us how they can install this system in their homes.” (END/2005)

• Worldwatch Institute
  
• Clean Edge