West Indies - Paradise Bay Resort in Grenada installs 80 KW wind turbine

On March 30, the Paradise Bay Resort completed installation of a utility-grade windmill with an estimated output of 180,000 kWh per year, a First in the Eastern Caribbean. As the 9 villa resort is expected to use less than 120,000 kWh, the resort is better than zero carbon. However, 2 weeks ago Grenlec, the local electricity company, imposed a $73,000, non-agreed "interconnection fee" in addition to enforcing non-agreed "impact" and other studies payable by the resort, four months after the interconnection should have taken place and 9 months after agreement on the conditions hereto.

As Grenlec (parent: WRB Enterprises Inc.,Tampa/FL) did not respond to the request to honor the agreed conditions, in spite of several urgent reminders, the resort now decided to commission the windmill connected to a diesel generator, initially installed as back-up. This will be one of the first windmill installations in the world, able to supply almost 100 percent of the energy by wind, whereby the diesel generator is mostly idling. As a further refinement, the fuel line to the diesel generator will be interrupted by a new control system. As all excess energy is wasted while not being connected to the mains, the resort is now talking to ECO friendly micro-industries in Grenada to move to their location.

James Post, the owner of the resort has written several articles on green energy, i.e. Green Energy Options in the Caribbean. He is a motivated promoter of wind energy and offers others assistance in feasibility study and practical assistance during installation in the Caribbean. WRB Industries' Daughter Company Caribbean Wind Power Inc. seems to have a similar mission, according to their website: "We work in conjunction with major wind power developers and suppliers to bring this technology to the Caribbean".

Every Sunday in July and August the resort features free seminars where members of the public are educated about green energy and global warming. Grenada would suffer relatively heavy when global temperature would rise more than 2 degrees. To motivate the public to take a proactive approach, the resort bought 3,000 energy saving light bulbs and offers them to the public for an under-market price. But, buyers get a credit at the restaurant for the same amount as they purchased light bulbs.

To further promote green energy, the resort offers students an opportunity to use the sustainable approach at Paradise Bay as an example to produce a 60 seconds video and participate in the "60 seconds to save the earth" contest (open for US, UK and Ireland), as announced at Live Earth by Cameron Diaz. Students can download all materials from the Internet and get extensive support, including releases for appearance and music.

The information will be available at www.paradisebayresort.net/html/eco.html

Contact Info:
James Post, Paradise Bay Resort and Spa
Tel: (++1) 473-405-8888
E-mail : Info@paradisebayresort.net Website : the Paradise Resort