BUSINESS CORNER
Joanna Edghill, managing director of Megapower, poses for a portrait
with one of her company’s electric cars in Bridgetown, Barbados`
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados
(Thomson Reuters Foundation) --
With her foot down to show off the
acceleration of the zippy electric
car, Joanna Edghill spins around
the car park before plugging
the vehicle into a charging point
beneath rows of solar panels
converting Caribbean rays into
power for the grid. “We have at least 220 days of pure
sunlight every year, so why not take
advantage of the resources that we
do have here?” she added.
Burdened by a costly dependence
on imported fuel for energy,
Barbados and many other
Caribbean islands are considering
boosting the number of electric
vehicles on their roads.
In the five years since she and her
husband started their company
Megapower, it has sold 300 electric
vehicles and set up 50 charging
stations plus a handful of solar car-
ports on the 21 mile-long (34 km)
island of Barbados. But they face barriers, including
high initial costs, stiff import duties
on electric vehicles and a lack of
regulatory support, say people
working in the sector.
They are now expanding elsewhere
in the Caribbean.
“The main factor with islands
is we don’t have range anxiety.
I can develop and roll out a
charging network in Barbados
where customers are never more
than a few kilometers from a
charging point,” said Edghill, who
previously worked in international
development.
Globally, the number of electric
vehicles topped 3 million in 2017,
according to the International
Energy Agency (IEA), which
predicts there will be 125 million in
use by 2030.
That figure could go as high as
220 million if action to meet
global climate targets and other
sustainability goals becomes more
ambitious, says the IEA. More
research, policies and incentives
are needed to drive further uptake,
it notes.
26 SL-YOU | It’s All About Business
In Barbados, the island’s electricity
utility, government departments
and private firms are among the
customers buying the lefthand-
drive electric cars and delivery vans
Megapower imports from Britain,
said Edghill.
It has also built solar car-ports,
which power charging points,
for the Barbados arm of courier
giant DHL and the government of
St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
Megapower’s other solar panels
feed into the grid, offsetting the
equivalent of the non-renewable
power used by 400 electric cars.
“The Caribbean is ripe for the
electrification of transportation,”
said Curtis Boodoo, assistant
professor at the University of
Trinidad and Tobago who also
works on electric vehicles with
the CARICOM regional group of 15
countries.
“If you invest in electric vehicles,
you are able to use your existing
electrical infrastructure and save
the costs of the transportation fuel
that you have to import,” he said.
www.slyoumag.com | September-October 2019