KINGSTON: The volatil­i­ty of the glob­al en­er­gy mar­ket has forced con­sum­ing coun­tries world­wide to take a se­ri­ous look at the sky­rock­et­ing cost and its im­pact on their economies, and to plan and im­ple­ment strate­gies aimed at re­duc­ing their de­pen­dence on fos­sil fu­el. The Ja­maican gov­ern­ment, which is al­so feel­ing the ef­fects of the cost of im­port­ed oil, has stepped up its ef­fort to raise pub­lic aware­ness and plan strate­gies for the use of al­ter­na­tive en­er­gy, par­tic­u­lar­ly re­new­able en­er­gy. In­clud­ed in the strate­gies are the launch­ing of the coun­try's first Na­tion­al En­er­gy Pol­i­cy; set­ting the stage for the in­tro­duc­tion of liq­ue­fied nat­ur­al gas (LNG); pro­mot­ing the use of so­lar en­er­gy and ex­pand­ing wind farms.

There has al­so been an is­land­wide se­ries of com­mu­ni­ty and stake­hold­er work­shops put on by the Pe­tro­le­um Cor­po­ra­tion of Ja­maica (PCJ). At the Feb­ru­ary 2011 launch of the work­shops, chief tech­ni­cal di­rec­tor at the PCJ, Earl Green, ex­plained that the ob­jec­tives were to pro­mote en­er­gy ef­fi­cien­cy; and the util­i­sa­tion of en­er­gy ef­fi­cient equip­ment, gad­gets, sys­tems and pro­grammes in Ja­maica. Mean­while, new­ly-ap­point­ed Min­is­ter of En­er­gy and Min­ing, Clive Mullings, is call­ing on Ja­maicans to be more knowl­edge­able about en­er­gy con­sump­tion in their house­holds, in their dai­ly trav­els and at the work­place. In so do­ing, house­hold­ers will be able to con­trol what they spend month­ly to meet their do­mes­tic en­er­gy needs. Mullings said con­sumers must en­sure that the ap­pli­ances they pur­chase are en­er­gy ef­fi­cient, and that they are aware of what caus­es spikes in en­er­gy us­age.

"The rea­son why, in some in­stances, the bill goes up, is that the house is locked up and is very hot, and the re­frig­er­a­tor, by virtue of the in­creas­ing pres­sure on the out­side, is con­tin­u­ous­ly work­ing," he said.

En­er­gy ef­fi­cient ap­pli­ances

Mullings said 65 per cent of en­er­gy con­sump­tion is in re­frig­er­a­tion and air-con­di­tion­ing, and the gov­ern­ment is ac­tive­ly ex­am­in­ing the use of the cur­rent hy­dro­car­bon re­frig­er­ant, which is high­ly in­ef­fi­cient. "We have to see how best we can min­imise the util­i­sa­tion of that in ap­pli­ances or make our con­sumers aware that when they are pur­chas­ing equip­ment, they don't just buy the cheap­est one, but they look at the en­er­gy ef­fi­cient one," he ar­gues. The min­is­ter al­so cites oth­er strate­gies that con­sumers can adopt to min­imise en­er­gy con­sump­tion, in­clud­ing open­ing win­dows to in­crease air flow, us­ing the wa­ter heater for no more than five to ten min­utes and re­strict­ing the fre­quent use of irons. "Un­like the leak­ing pipe where you can see wa­ter gush­ing, you don't see the elec­tric­i­ty gush­ing. For the re­frig­er­a­tor, you have to get in­to the cul­ture of not go­ing in and out like a re­volv­ing door, be­cause you are af­fect­ing your con­sump­tion. These things add up," he said. The min­is­ter says ef­forts are be­ing made in pub­lic build­ings to re­duce en­er­gy con­sump­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly in this time of fis­cal con­straints. Mullings rec­om­mends that pri­vate com­pa­nies can re­quest of the Ja­maica Pub­lic Ser­vice, a graph of their en­er­gy con­sump­tion pat­tern. This will en­able them to iden­ti­fy pe­ri­ods of high en­er­gy use, analyse these times and take cor­rec­tive de­ci­sions.

Al­ter­na­tive en­er­gy sources

There is al­so con­cern about the use of high en­er­gy con­sum­ing in­can­des­cent light bulbs, which could be re­placed by more en­er­gy ef­fi­cient flu­o­res­cent bulbs. Com­ment­ing on the pro­posed ban on in­can­des­cent bulbs, the min­is­ter says there is mer­it in at least ex­am­in­ing the prospect of im­pos­ing such a ban, point­ing out that any such de­ci­sion would have to be made by Cab­i­net. "The fact is that the en­er­gy sav­ing bulb is more ex­pen­sive, but we have to get there, be­cause we are fac­ing a cri­sis," he said. Mean­while, the gov­ern­ment has stepped up its ef­fort to boost its re­new­able en­er­gy strat­e­gy, through the com­mis­sion­ing of a wind map­ping study. This study is be­ing un­der­tak­en by Wig­ton Wind Farm Ltd, an agency of the Min­istry of En­er­gy and Min­ing, through the PCJ. Wind map­ping will de­ter­mine the wind blow­ing pat­terns across the is­land. It will al­so iden­ti­fy the best points for es­tab­lish­ing wind farms. (Ja­maica In­for­ma­tion Ser­vice)