Biographies of WREN Members

OLIVER HEADLEY

ALTERNATIVE ENERGY PROJECTS

UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST INDIES, BARBADOS, WEST INDIES

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Work in alternative energy began at the UWl in the early 60's by Mr W W S Charters ( a member of staff in the Department of Mechanical Engineering) at St Augustine. Most of the work was done on flat plate collector systems and this continued under Professor Satcunanathan in the same department. In the 70's Dr Glenda So'Brien and Dr G Kochhar of the Mechanical Engineering group extended their work to solar cooling. In the late 60's Dr O Headley of the Department of Chemistry and Dr B G F Springer of the Regional Research Centre in the Faculty of Agriculture at the St Augustine Campus began work on solar stills. This was later extended ot solar crop driers, solar timber driers, solar powered fractional distillation of alcohol and solar refrigeration.

Most of the research work in alternative energy has been done at the St Augustine Campus.At Mona Campus in Jamaica Dr Anthony Chen of the Department of Physics has been working on the collection of meteorological data for solar and wind energy applications. This work has been more of a theoretical nature although there is now interest m using wind turbines at appropriate sites in Jamaica in order to reduce the use of fossil fuels. Research in alternative energy at the Cave Hill Campus is of fairly recent origin even though Barbadoe has the most successful solar water heating industry in the Caribbean with about 22,000 units installed on the island's 70,000 households. This is one of the best examples of the effectiveness of fiscal incentives in the adoption of alternative energy technology since the Government of Barbados gave tax relief to the consumer on the installation of a solar water heater and waived import duties

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which manufacturer would normally have paid on imported on raw materials.

Research and Outreach at St Augustine

After the initial research, a considerable amount of effort was made to apply these results in the community. The solar stills were developed for producing distilled water for school science laboratories with over 50 being installed in Trinidad and Tobago and similar number in Jamaica. A former technician in the Centre Analytical Laboratory who had been employed there by the Regional Research Centre now operates 40 sq m of solar stills on the roof of his home in Diego Martin, Trinidad, where he produces distilled water commercially. A 70 sq m solar still has just been completed on the roof of the new chemistry building at St Augustine to supply distilled water to the department. These stills are all of the cascade type which was developed at St Augustine.

The solar dryer work was initiated as part of the Root Crop Programme. Outreach work in solar crop drying was conducted in the islands of the Eastern Caribbean. It involved the dissemination of simple solar dryer technology to farmers and other interested persons. Crop dryers have now been built in most of the CARICOM territories from Guyana in the south east to Belize in the north west. Solar timbe dryers have also been designed for sawmills and furniture companies in several of the islands but because of financial constraints, only one of these was completed and operated commercially. Professor R Saunders of the Department of Physics developed a solar timber dryer which uses the waste slag from the steel mill in Trinidad as the solar absorber.

Activities at Cave Hill

In the lates 80's a 150 sq m solar roof collector was used as the power source for a dryer at Friendship Plantation in Barbados where it dries hay and occasionally onions. This was designed by Dr Headley. A similar dryer is now being planned for the Ministry of Agriculture in Antigua.

With the transfer of Dr Headley to the Cave Hill Campus in 1992, solar energy work is now being conducted in absorption air

Biographies of WREN Members

conditioning, solar drying of fruit and the development of reverse selective surfaces to reduce the air conditioning load on buildings. Plans are also being formulated to set up a 1000 kg per day solar ice maker for the Fisheries Department. A 40 sq m cascade solar still is also planned for the new Analytical/Environmental Laboratory which should be constructed in the near future at the Cave Hill Campus. The Atlantic Ocean off the north coast of Barbados shelves to over 1000 m quite close to the shore and this is therefore a promising site for an OTEC plant.

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