Brooks says residents
too comfy to cut back
~ Calls on govt to provide incentives ~
DAWN BEACH--St. Maarten residents are too comfortable with their lifestyles to cut down on energy use, is the opinion of utilities company GEBE Managing Director William Brooks.
Addressing a gathering of fellow utilities company heads and Chamber of Commerce representatives from across the region during a one-day energy stakeholders’ workshop at The Westin St. Maarten on Tuesday, Brooks chided St. Maarten residents for being too comfortable with their lifestyles to cut down on energy use.
“People are consuming more although we have asked them to consume less.” People don’t want to give up their comfort level,” he said, adding that without checking their lifestyles, residents attacked GEBE and him for their sky-high bills.
Brooks is under fire from the community after information gathered by this newspaper revealed this week that GEBE had not given any tangible relief to residents at the height of the oil price hike. The announced six per cent fuel clause rate reduction turned out to be the reinstatement of an existing reduction that had been removed by Brooks on taking up the post of managing director in January 2007.
The ball is in government’s court to come up with and provide incentives to entice residents to conserve electricity and water as a cost-cutting measure and to lessen the dependence on fossil fuels, Brooks said.
St. Maarten uses about 53 megawatts of electricity at peak periods, comparable to the amount of energy used in much larger and more populated St. Lucia, Brooks pointed out.
The cost of fuel on electricity bills as of June was about 3.5 times consumers’ actual consumption cost, leaving residents angry and laying the blame squarely at Brooks’ feet.
He emphasised that he had no control over the fuel cost and at the same time could not absorb the hefty increases by subsiding electricity cost.
The road ahead to end total dependency on fossil fuel lies in a comprehensive energy policy vetted by government that possibly points the way to greener electricity options, Brooks said.
All possible scenarios for alternative energy must be properly researched and put into perspective. In the case of establishing a wind energy farm, Brooks said at least 1.6 square kilometres would be needed for turbines to produce just one megawatt of electricity. To supply the peak hour demand of 53 megawatts, the entire Dutch side and part of the French side would need to be covered by windmills, according to Brooks’ calculation.
He suggested turning homes into energy producers by installing solar water heaters and by putting wind turbines on the roofs. This way the dependency on GEBE fossil fuel-produced electricity would be lessened and the excess from the houses could be fed into the power grid to be used by others. This greener energy production could be funded by government incentives to homeowners or GEBE could invest in it and resell the power to residents.
The one-day workshop was opened by Energy Affairs Commissioner Roy Marlin, who challenged regional utilities association Carilec to band together to negotiate with fuel suppliers to obtain a better rate for oil. “Unity is strength,” he stressed.
GEBE partnered with Carilec and Caribbean Association of Industry and Commerce (CAIC) to organise the workshop.
