St.John’s Westin Resort is turning to the sun for electricity. Its owner, Starwood Hotels and Resorts has contracted with NRG Energy of Princeton, N.J. to install a 1.3 megawatt solar array.
The average home in the US uses between 1 and 1.5 kW of electricity on average, so not taking highs and lows into consideration, 1 MW would power between 750 and 1000 homes, an energy-related Web site said.
The Westin project will be the first in a partnership between NRG and Starwood. NRG will own the array while Starwood agrees to purchase the electricity. “Not only will Starwood reduce its costs, it also will lock in predictable costs at an affordable level for years to come,” NRG said in a statement.
Turning to solar on St. John makes a lot of sense. The average cost of a kilowatt of energy from the local Water and Power Authority can approach 50 cents, three or four times that on the mainland.
Electricity costs have been a terrible tax on residents and businesses, for years, sparking a Cruz Bay street protest a few years ago.
Neither NRG nor Starwood indicated when the solar installation project will begin.
Your newsletter is great, but of late I’m having difficulty opening your mail and getting
the latest article. Anyone else having the same problem?
Hi Dixon, thanks for letting us know about this. I sent you an email. If you could send me a bit more detail, I can try to help you fix whatever may be going wrong.
Thanks,
NOSJ
This solar movement was a long time coming and was initiated by owners at the fractional owners at the Westin along with other environmental friendly measures. Now if we could reduce the water use and trash production!
WAPA is full of lazy crooks looking for a handout. I can tell you from first hand experience running a business down here that they don’t care a big about helping you or the community but they will call you any day of the week to give a “donation” to their child’s football team and promise you “favors” if you do so.