On Wednesday this week, (30th May), Dr. Douglas made the announcement and indicated that this is going to be the first positive development, where the consumer who would be living in these homes, will begin to see a dramatic reduction in their electricity bills, because they will be generating their own electricity, to some extent, from the panels that would be outfitted onto their homes.
He added that these new houses will be outfitted with solar energy panels by the National Housing Corporation, while the Ministry of Energy will make the investment for the new householder, and the repayment will be tied into the overall mortgage cost of the house.
Douglas said, “No longer would you have homes being built with panels that would be used to heat water, which is what is happening today, but we will now have panels which will be able to capture energy from the sun, and have that converted into electricity, which will be utilized at the household level and thus become less dependent on electricity generated from our electricity plant, thus their bills at the end of the month would be dramatically less, than what we are seeing today by the ordinary consumer.”
He added that funding has already been identified and that probably within a month’s time, the construction will begin on these homes.
“We are very serious about tackling this problem of high electricity costs and we are doing it by bringing to our people, in very rapid and reliable ways, alternative sources of energy,” he concluded.