Why did solar power idea fail to take off?
I was impressed by SCM Sweet’s letter [GP 7 November 2023] about solar power opportunities on Guernsey. Much less so by the negative reaction of senior management at this island’s airport that some at least of their many acres could be used as a site for panels. ‘Visual distraction’ here was to blame he was told when he pointed out that Christchurch Airport in New Zealand was already heavily into a project and with considerable benefits.
Well, so far as I know New Zealand is a civilized, sophisticated country. Christchurch Airport handles dozens of internal flights daily as well as having international links to a number of cities in Australia plus Singapore and the Fiji Islands. Knowing NZ, I can tell you this would not have been embarked upon without full feasibility tests, including exhaustive safety checks.
So what does Guernsey Airport senior management know that Christchurch’s equivalent do not? Have they done a full risk assessment and come up with the answer it would be unsafe, or is this yet another case of the mind-numbing worldwide corporate disease known as NIH (not invented here)…
Judging by the benefits in the NZ case, where all service vehicles at the country’s five international airports, not just at the one, will convert to the hydrogen created, just think what could happen here, not just at the airport, but among the cash-strapped States’ road fleet.
Stuart Garner, Jerbourg