O. Rodger Hutchinson, JIS Writer

Adrian Levy checks the reading on one of the many gauges that tells him how much energy he has gathered from the sun and from the wind at his home in Mount Royal Estate, St Catherine.

How high is your current Jamaica Public Service bill ... $7,000, $12,000, $20,000, maybe higher? What would you say to the idea of paying between $500 up to a high of $2,000 monthly and still being able to run all your usual appliances? Sounds too good to be true?

Well, several Jamaican householders have had enough and are finding ways to tackle the monster of high energy cost. Take Adrian Levy, for example, whose success has proven that it is possible. He's done so by installing a combination micro wind turbine and solar hybrid alternative-energy generator; complete with a nine-bank 700 ampere rolls battery storage system at his home in Mount Royal Estate, St Catherine.

During Hurricane Dean, while others were in darkness due to the loss of the public electricity supply, Levy was running his house as he normally did, with all the comforts of home, because he had generated his own electricity.

He ended up having to facilitate neighbours with ice and even stored some frozen foods for them, as he was one of the few with a working refrigerator that didn't use a noisy, conventional fuel generator.

Wind turbines work on a simple premise. It uses blades (a slimmer version of those on an electric fan), which turn when the wind blows in its direction. It drives a shaft connected to a gearbox, which in turn rotates a turbine from which electricity is generated.

Turbine systems

Portmore resident Adrian Levy points to his 1,000-watt Bergey permanent magnet micro roof-mounted wind turbine. - JIS Photos

Two types of wind-turbine systems are commonly used, roof mounted and mast mounted. Mast mounted is the more popular in Jamaica and is the type used at the Wigton Wind Farm in Manchester. But those, of course, are larger. Those used on top of roofs are called micro turbines.

The Portmore resident, over time, put in place a 1,000-watt Bergey permanent magnet micro roof-mounted wind turbine and a 1,000-watt solar hybrid system, which he says generates a maximum 7.5 kilowatts in a given day. This system, he said, does not require any current to produce energy.

"Once it turns, it will start to cut magnet lines of flux, start to induce a voltage in the coils and will produce a current," he said proudly.

He said he also added a mechanism to boost the energy, so that if the voltage generated were lower than the battery voltage, it would boost that extracted energy so something could be gained.

Bemoaning the current disheartening state of the world's energy market, Levy said he would encourage homeowners to begin thinking about and installing an alternative-energy system.

"If you do not want to be living as if it's the dark ages you might prefer to go alternative energy. People work hard and yet have to be living in the dark because of high energy costs. It's either you decide to spend more on electricity bills or you can spend now [and install an alternative energy system]," he said.

This would be ideal, he pointed out, for apartment complexes and gated communities and small or large controlled communities where a wind turbine could be used to offset the cost for perimeter lighting and other purposes. If surplus energy is generated, the excess could be sold back to the Jamaica Public Service and the profit generated used to in turn offset the costs of other projects.

Installing a wind turbine can be a costly exercise. However, Levy suggested that persons interested or intending to do so start small and in manageable stages. By his estimate, the alternative energy system at his home is currently valued at over a million dollars and targets about 10 kilowatts per day.

In layman's terms, this means that at the end of the month close to 80 per cent of the households energy needs would have been met by the elements, a fact that would be reflected on the monthly utility bill.

He advises that there is always someone who is upgrading and who is usually willing to sell at a reasonable cost but stresses "if you cannot afford a large system, start small and you will make it, build as you go," he noted.

Purchased hybrid-energy motor car

So enthusiastic is he about alternative energy that Levy has gone a step further by purchasing a hybrid-energy motor car. This car uses electricity (from a high voltage battery) and a 1.5 litre gasolene engine. "1,066 kilometres from 43 litres of gas. The high voltage battery that drives the car is supposed to last two kilometres and I've driven from Liguanea to downtown Kingston, saving 95 per cent on gas," he explained.

These are pretty impressive savings. He explained that Kingston is primarily built on a slope, and on a slope with the hybrid car you generate electricity going down, so for all that time the car would not use any gas in or out of traffic. So, the gas engine will propel the car when either the battery is depleted or when the effort required is more than the electrified motor can supply.

As if answering an unasked question, Levy stressed that the car can take the rigors of a run in the countryside on rough roads or smooth.