Cuba is without doubt the most forward thinking country in the planet when it comes to energy policy.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1999, Cuba has suffered terribly with frequent blackouts and food shortages caused by worn out kit and inefficiency. Instead of doing nothing good, old Fidel introduced an environmental policy called the Revolución Energética in 2006.

The idea was to save energy not just import more.

The headline grabbing part of this revolution was to replace every incandescent light bulb in the country - all 9 million of them- with an energy saver.

This was achieved in just six months. So how did they do this mammoth task?

Using an education plan for all and the incentive of an energy tariff.

In Cuba, if consumers use less than 100 kWh of electricity per month, they pay 0.4 US cents/kWh. The rate rises to 5.4 US cents/kWh for consumers using more than 300 kWh per month.

As a result Cubans consumed an average 1,380 kWh of electricity per capita in 2007/08 – more than ten times less than US consumers.

As a final thought I leave you with this to ponder. The US government are still trying to decide about how to change there light bulbs over. They think it will take six years.

Maybe Obama should give Fidel a call to get some advice.