The Grenada Hotel and Tourism Association Members (GHTA) were treated to a presentation by Ethical Ideas (me!), titled "Grenada's Sustainable Tourism Future" last evening at the True Blue Bay Resort. The presentation outlined what we have done to-date, such as defining, voting upon and circulating the GHTA Earth Day Declaration. The presentation also profiled some of the things we are learning such as:
Converting to renewable (solar) energy isn't as easy as it sounds.....
The cost of setting up individual solar systems is one problem - because the electricity rates offered by the local utility GRENLEC are so low, commercial financing options are not viable. Grant funds are available but they take a long time to obtain and will not be sufficient to cover individual properties if the grants are obtained with a 'small project' fund. There is also the challenge of maintaining grid stability, which apparently could be affected if a bunch of properties started generating large quantities of solar power. It's starting to look like we'll need a feasibility study if we have systems put on hotel roof's, and it's not even clear if is this is the right way to go yet.
It may be wiser to look at National renewable solutions instead.......
This isn't set in stone of course, but it does look like the more practical route would be to convert ALL OF GRENADA to renewable energy. I've been told by a very reliable expert that the most cost-effective option for national conversion would be to aim for 70% renewable with a diesel back-up system. There's technical reasons for this (That are beyond my understanding!) that are apparently very costly to solve if we want to go 100% solar. Based on expert input, a national conversion would cost about $90 million USD! That's a lot of money!!! But...
Where there's a will, there's a way!
So, the Members have been given a briefing on where we're at, what I plan to do to keep the ball rolling in the right direction and we press onwards!!! The Grenlec Marketing Manager was present at the Members Meeting yesterday and the Members sure gave her a hard time, expressing frustration at the high electricity prices and arguing that it is in no-one's interest to be one of the most expensive countries in the world for electricity prices. I looked up figures for that argument today and found that indeed - Grenada is among the top 10 countries in the world for high electricity prices. The only country I could find with higher electricity rates was Tonga.
