As the government makes its latest moves at expropriating the privately held Belize Electricity Limited, we take time to look at solar power generation. Solar power systems are popular here with expats and retirees that often choose to live off grid and off the beaten track so as to enjoy a more tranquil environment, and also to avoid exorbitant electric utility bills.
Our correspondent Mr. Mark Miller has contributed an excellent primer on grid-tied solar power systems and the advantages this system offers for power generation in Belize.
Belize is a growing eco-tourism destination with beautiful natural resources and plenty of sunshine. It’s the sunshine that we can use to develop grid-tied solar power to reduce our heavy reliance on imported electricity powered by diesel and other fossil fuels, enhance our tourism industry, our economy, the reliability of our electric grid, and our sovereignty as a nation.
Solar Power has two basic forms – heat and photovoltaic. Photovoltaic means that the solar power is converted to electricity. 1 direct use such as water pumping or running a fan only when the sun shines 2 remote systems that use batteries for power storage so that power is available when the sun does not shine, and 3 grid tied systems complement the power company’s other generation sources.
A grid-tied solar system is made up of solar panels that turn light into DC electricity with fuses and circuit breakers for safety, a grid-tied inverter, and one or two electric meters to facilitate feeding your solar energy into the power company’s system, in this case, that of Belize Electricity Ltd. (BEL). These systems are very common throughout the world.
It is more efficient to be hooked into the utility grid because off-grid systems must store the energy in batteries which lose energy and need regular replacement. If you are on the grid, the utility system keeps track of the kilowatts you use. In a grid-tied system the electricity produced from solar panels lowers the amount of kilowatt hours you need to buy from BEL. During bright sun, you can produce more energy than you consume, so you are effectively selling electricity to BEL.
If your system has one meter, it is called net-metering, because the meter rungs in both directions and at the end of each month, simply tells you whether you bought or sold more power. Net metering is beneficial to consumers as you effectively get the same sales price as you pay. However net metering does not adequately pay BEL for the use of their grid, so they need to make up that cost elsewhere on the system.
If your system has two meters, one records your sales to the power company, and one records your purchases from the power company. This allows two different prices to be set for the price of power.
The cost of bringing electricity to your home can be broken into three components: transmission – the moving of large amounts of high voltage power to key points around the country; distribution – the moving of medium voltage power into neighborhoods; and generation – the making of the electricity.
As a solar grid-tied system is a generation systems if definitely competes with the imported electricity from Mexico. It also has distinct advantages over the power from our friendly neighbor. Grid-tied systems are generally sized to produce near the amount of electricity that a home or business uses every month. For homes this may a systems up to 10 kW, and for hotels, resorts, large farms and other business somewhat bigger than that based on their power usage. As this places many small solar systems around the country, the power generation is said to be distributed. This is advantageous to the electric utility company as less power needs to be transmitted to the various distribution networks, thus saving some transmission costs.
Another advantage of grid-tied solar is that the power is produced when the sun shines, which is the same time when our electricity use is at its highest, as businesses and tourist destinations have their air conditioning running most when it is hottest. It is as these times when we need to purchase the most power from Mexico, and the power from Mexico is more expensive than the power from our in-country sources such as the hydro-electric dams.
Remember any time we send money to another country is hurts Belize’s balance of trade and weakens our economy. Grid tied solar can help us be more independent and better placed in the world marketplace.
Our tourism industry is based primarily on our beautiful sea, rivers and forests. Solar power can play an important role in improving the marketing of this important segment of our economy. Solar power does not produce greenhouse gases, thus Belize can send a message to the more developed countries of the world that we are concerned about our global climate change, and if we can take this step, surely the wealthier countries can do even more.
Grid-tied solar power is not cheap to establish; it represents a significant investment for the home or business owner. But is is an investment that can pay for itself over many years, thus saving money over time. We encourage Belize Electricity Ltd. And the government of Belize to start allowing and promoting grid-tied solar power for homes and businesses. By Mark Miller. Southern Solar Solutions solarbelize at gmail.com
Recent Comments