Barbados is a dominant player in encouraging increasingly aggressive country commitments to reduced carbon emissions. Barbados itself intends to achieve major economy-wide reductions by 2030. However policies to encourage the business case for energy storage and demand response will be necessary to actualize large-scale deployment of intermittent resources like solar and wind in a small and isolated power system like Barbados’.
Electric vehicles have been shown to represent both an energy storage and demand response solution, especially where the timing of charge can be aligned with solar and wind generation profiles. Given Barbados’ limited land area, its dense road network, and the relatively large size of its total fleet, I partner with the University of the West Indies, Barbados, to explore the impact of fleets conversion on transportation costs and renewables penetration on the grid.
This study provides a comprehensive review of literature on island applications of electric vehicles, making the case for islands as a proving ground for vehicle-to-grid services. We find that Barbados is witnessing a successful uptake of electric vehicles in its private vehicle sector, analysis shows that it aging public transportation fleet with unsustainable subsidy support holds great potential for fleet conversion benefits. This could potentially reduce the costs of public transportation, on which 20% of population relies on entirely, while improving air quality and public awareness.
