Anthony Babauta, the assistant secretary of Interior for Insular Affairs, is visiting the Virgin Islands with the message that he and the Obama administration want to help Virgin Islanders improve their quality of life.
On Friday, he visited the Career and Technical Education Center on St. Croix and saw what some Virgin Islanders are doing for themselves, with the help of funding from the federal government.
Babauta, accompanied by a string of local officials, visited the Green Technologies program, where 26 people are nearing the end of a training program to become solar water-heater installers. The trainees displayed and explained several of the units they assembled as part of their training, answering questions about their work and pointing out different features.
The program, which began in August, is a cooperative effort by the Department of Labor and the Energy Office. Using funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, commonly known as the economic stimulus bill, the program is trying to create a new industry. As the Energy Office works to spur the use of solar water-heaters in the territory, the Department of Labor is training people so when the demand for the units starts, there will be people trained to install them.
The program is exactly what President Obama was talking about when he ran for president in 2008, Babauta said.
"It’s creating new jobs in new, green technologies," he said.
If it seems odd that a tropical, sun-kissed territory such as the Virgin Islands is just getting started in solar energy, Babauta said, maybe it’s just a convergence of things – technology meeting growing demand, coupled with the increasing cost of gasoline that provides electrical power, with just one more factor to push it over the top.
"Everything has come together, and we have a president who sees the possibilities and provides the leadership," Babauta said.
Babauta and the other officials listened as students in the Green Tech program explained the systems and the training they’d received.
The 26 trainees were among 30 originally chosen friom more than 120 applicants to learn both the theoretical and practical aspects of solar water heaters. The Energy Office is setting up a program that will allow homeowners to purchase solar water-heaters with no up-front cash and pay them off without increasing their monthly expenditures. The payments will come from the difference between what they paid for power before they went solar and what their bill drops to, which the Energy Office has estimated will be about a 30 percent savings. The goal is to increase solar water heater sales in the territory from 125 a year to 1,000 or more.
And the students at CTEC will be ready to help install them.
Congresswoman Donna Christensen, who attended the demonstration with Babauta, said she was happy to see the program come to fruition.
"I’ve been hearing about the development of this program since the beginning," she said. "It’s been very exciting for me to see this."
Kelly Gloger of St. Croix’s Solar Delivered, who helped put the training program together, said the congresswoman has done more than "hear" about the program. He told Babauta that it was Christensen’s bringing the House Insular Affairs Committee to the island two years ago that really jump started the program.
Also on hand were Energy Office Director Bevan R. Smith, Labor Commissioner Albert Bryan and CTEC principal Willard John.
