Making homes more energy efficient to become easier

Barbadians seeking to make their homes more energy efficient may soon not have to go into debt to do so.

Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister with responsibility for Energy Senator Darcy Boyce said Barbados was moving towards a stage where householders would not have to go to the banking system to get funding for photovoltaic systems through a programme provided through the Caribbean Development Bank. “Hopefully we will get that matter sorted out in the next few months and will be able to come back here and say more on that,” he stated.

Speaking during the debate on the Offshore Petroleum (Amendment) Bill 2017 in the Upper House, he stressed that while the island was looking to ensure that oil was drilled and brought ashore safely, it was critical not to put a heavy reliance on oil and gas, but to instead focus on using the country’s own natural resources for energy.

“Economies that have built themselves around oil and gas to the detriment of everything else have found themselves in considerable difficulty when the price of oil drops, and our neighbour to the south has found itself in that situation,” he said.
Boyce further outlined that in managing its oil and gas sector, Barbados would be modeling itself after the Norwegian model.

“They have pressed with their energy efficiency, they have pressed ahead with their renewable energy, particularly wind, but they’ve put their production of oil and gas, most of it into heritage funds, stabilization funds, so as to be able to draw upon those when they need to, and also to use those resources for developing other parts of the economy,” he said.

Boyce added, “We want to put ourselves in that same position. But we can only get there if we right now do the things that are important to reduce our use of energy and also generate energy from other sources, and therefore that is what we are doing.” (JMB)