Interview: Solar Buzz Jamaica

JAMAICAN SOLAR REVOLUTION

Sustainable Business Magazine speaks with Jason Robinson, CEO of Solar Buzz Jamaica, about resilient, cost-effective energy generation in Jamaica.

“We’re still seeing a lot of commercial buildings in Jamaica are built with roofs that can’t handle solar just to save some money,” says Jason Robinson, CEO of Solar Buzz Jamaica. “In this day and age, on an island state located in a hurricane zone, that’s unacceptable. But it’s not going to change until the government adopts better green building codes.”

Solar Buzz Jamaica are renewables and energy efficiency specialists, offering design and installation of solar systems as well as other energy-conservation technologies like efficient pool pumps and glass coatings. The company started out in 2011, after Mr. Robinson returned to his home country from Los Angeles with burgeoning experience in the renewables sector. He was motivated by what he felt was the Jamaica’s broken energy system. “At that time people were paying 45 cents or more per kilowatt hour (kWh) at their homes, and businesses were paying in the region of 30 cents,” says Mr. Robinson. “As a result, businesses were closing down because they couldn’t even afford their electricity bill. The power utility in the country was – and still is – a monopoly.”

SPREADING THE WORD

It took some time before Solar Buzz Jamaica could even get involved in solar energy. “What we found back then was that financing simply wasn’t available for solar installations,” says Mr. Robinson. “Banks weren’t interested. We had to pivot and instead focused on energy audits and monitoring. I had the exclusive rights to an energy monitor called OWL, so I was putting that in people’s homes and businesses, teaching them how to conserve through energy monitoring. Then the company started adding energy efficiency products to our range in order to further help our clients.”

“Around 2014, the Development Bank of Jamaica finally put financing in place that was accessible for normal businesses,” says Mr. Robinson. “Before that, the terms were too short and the interest rates too high. At the end of 2014, the bank extended the Energy Loan to a 10-year term at around 8%. That allowed monthly payments on the loan to be less than what JPS, the country’s energy utility, wanted. That meant we finally saw an uptake in solar.”

Today, Solar Buzz Jamaica’s business is split approximately 70/30 between com

mercial and residential clients. This slower uptake by the residential sector is also due to the challenges of financing residential installations – the next challenge on Solar Buzz’s hit list.

FOCUS ON QUALITY

A national solar business didn’t appear with the flick of a switch. It has taken Solar Buzz Jamaica years of slow but strong growth built on the back of a commitment to reliable, long-lasting solar arrays. “Our focus at Solar Buzz is always quality,” says Mr. Robinson. “We saw when coming into the market that people were selling solar systems but they weren’t doing the necessary pre-engineering work to make sure their clients understood what they were getting and what energy bills would look like at the end of it. Solar Buzz does a detailed energy audit, getting the interval details for our clients, residential or commercial, from the meter. The 1-minute interval usage of a client’s home or business allows us to do a detailed study of their load profile. Once we have that data, we can design solar specifically to their needs while providing a turnkey solution including all the necessary paperwork.”

“We also ensure that our systems deliver exactly what we say they will,” says Mr. Robinson. “If we recommended that a system would offset 60% or 100% of your usage on a home, then we’ll always hit within 2% to 3% of that figure. Really, for us, it’s about

focusing on the methodical design and pre-engineering of systems, then using proper equipment. We only use UL or CE-listed equipment, and always design our racking to withstand 170MPH winds.”

RESILIENT ENERGY

Solar combined with battery storage offers a reliable source of electricity even in the case of a grid outage – but only if it’s able to withstand hurricanes in the first place. “A lot of other companies will buy iron or steel and then weld racking together here and put panels on it, but that comes with a whole host of issues regarding resiliency,” explains Mr. Robinson. “Our racking systems use materials which are designed to withstand 170MPH, and they come with a certificate from the racking manufacturer. That means our client can go and get property insurance and add their system to the insurance so that the banks’ investment, the homeowners’ investment, is protected.”

Mr. Robinson believes more can be done to facilitate the widespread adoption of residential solar in Jamaica. “We don’t have the infrastructure to sustain ourselves against these storms that are only getting worse with climate change,” says Mr. Robinson. “We have old grids. Our utilities still don’t even have underground transmission wires. Solar plus battery storage capacity means people can protect themselves as long as the roof stays on during a devastating hurricane. They can have solar power in the days following the storm rather than waiting maybe months for the grid to come back online. We need to focus on resilient power in Jamaica. Financial institutions need to start giving longer term loans to individual homeowners so that more and more

“IF WE RECOMMENDED THAT A SYSTEM WOULD OFFSET 60% OR 100% OF YOUR USAGE ON A HOME, THEN WE’LL ALWAYS HIT WITHIN 2% TO 3% OF THAT FIGURE”

people can afford even just a small backup system in their homes for critical backup.”

LONG-LASTING VALUE

“What 99% of our clients come to us for is to reduce energy cost,” says Mr. Robinson. “We have some of the highest energy costs in the world. Businesses today are still paying 25 cents per kWh for energy. It’s one of if not the highest expense that businesses here have. To be able to reduce that is a pleasure, especially for clients that aren’t open at night or don’t have cold storage that runs 24 hours a day, meaning you can offset 70% of that with a grid type solar system with a cash payback of two years.”

One recent larger-scale project Solar Buzz Jamaica worked on was with the University of the West Indies (UWI). “We recently won a tender for UWI through an EBSCO Solar Grant,” says Mr. Robinson. “The university approached us to help them design an application for their science library building, and we ended up winning it. It was the first library in the Caribbean to win the grant, and I think maybe in the whole Western Hemisphere. The 40kW system was installed and is now fully integrated into the curriculum. Once a semester we give a talk there. We designed it to be looked at as you walk around the roof, so everything is labeled and there is online monitoring. We’re very proud of the project, for the effort it took to win, to install it on time, and having it be part of the curriculum as an educational tool.”

“We are very involved with government and the Jamaica Renewable Energy Association,” says Mr. Robinson. “Pushing for new policies and changing existing policy is a big thing for us. We really need to see government implement better green policies for buildings so that when property is built, their roofs can handle solar. At the same time, we need better relationships with financial institutions, so we can get longer-term financing on solar so our residential clients can afford solar plus storage. We also want to have a better reach. The residential market is so untouched that we want to focus on growing that on the island. Eventually we do want to see ourselves doing a regional push – but not until we are satisfied and have proper established coverage of Jamaica.” c