Electricity Archives - Page 23 of 39

Solar Energy Association Wants Info On 115MW Project

May 12, 2014 Webmaster

Solar panels

The Jamaica Solar Energy Association is raising concern that there has been no word lately from the Office of Utilities Regulations (OUR) about the procurement for the supply of 115 megawatts of power from renewable energy sources.

The association says it is calling for probity, transparency and urgency in relation to the renewable energy project in light of the problems currently facing the 381 megawatt project.

The OUR has already named three bidders for the supply of 78 megawatts of that power but the association says the regulator has been silent on the next steps since March.

The association is calling for the OUR to ensure due diligence is observed in relation to the 115 megawatt procurement in light of the problems now plaguing the 381 megawatt project.

The Government last week announced that it is looking to revoke the licence issued to Energy World International after it failed to post its performance bond in relation to the project.

EWI has pointed to the refusal by the Inter-American Development Bank to provide funding for the project as one of the reasons it failed to meet the bond deadline.

The IDB is reportedly withholding its support because of alleged procurement breaches in the inclusion of EWI in the bidding process which were highlighted by the Office of the Contractor General.

Now the solar energy association is demanding that the OUR exercise due diligence to determine the technical competence and financial ability of the three bidders for the 115 megawatts project to begin construction in August 2014 for commissioning by July 2016.

The association is demanding that the OUR make public the licences issued for the supply of the renewable energy generation capacity in the same way that the licence to EWI was published.

Meanwhile, the association says the OUR had committed to issuing a new request for proposals for the remaining 37 megawatts of energy for the project in early 2014, but is yet to do so.

It says it is anxiously awaiting the start of the bidding process for those 37 megawatts.

Jamaica Gleaner;

Electricity Government LNG News

Paulwell seeks legal advice on possible challenge to OCG

May 6, 2014 Webmaster

ENERGY Minister Phillip Paulwell

ENERGY Minister Phillip Paulwell is seeking legal advice from the solicitor general with a view to taking Contractor General Dirk Harrison to court over his report on the bidding process to implement the 381-megawatt energy project, according to a well-placed source.

Consultations, the newspaper was informed, are already underway between the solicitor general and the embattled minister, who is fighting to clear not only his name, but to repair any reputational damage that occurred to the country with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) reversing its position to support the 381MW project as a result of the contractor general’s report.

The Jamaica Observer was, however, unable to reach Paulwell last night for a comment.

The basis on which the minister can seek judicial review of the contractor general report lies in the legal response of the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR) to the Office of the Contractor General’s special investigation report, the source said.

The OUR legal response, posted on its website, contends that the OCG erred in using the Government of Jamaica guidelines for consultancy tenders during its probe, whereas it should have used guidelines for Works Tenders. This, the source contends, is a serious error in law.

The OUR legal response further contends that the OUR conducted two distinctly different processes: an informal exploratory process in which expressions of interest were received, followed by a formal legal tender.

The source said that Energy World International (EWl), the company that eventually emerged as the preferred bidder to undertake the project, received Cabinet approval to be included after the deadline of the informal preliminary process but well before the commencement of the formal tender.

The sources said these two facts provided the foundation to apply for judicial review.

The project is to be built with a mix of EWI equity and multilateral funding. The imprimatur of the IDB is key to receiving the go-ahead for that funding.

It was Harrison’s first major report since assuming office in 2013. The report was issued on the same day that he issued the long-awaited Richard Azan report. But this isn’t the first time in recent years that a Government minister will be taking the OCG to court.

Transport Minister Dr Omar Davies last year sought leave for judicial review of a decision by the contractor general to monitor an oversight body set up by the minister to advise on the award of contracts to a public body.

The minister, however, withdrew the challenge.

Jamaica Observer;

Electricity Government LNG News

Bicknell Reserves Comment On EWI

May 2, 2014 Webmaster

Chris Bicknell, CEO of Tank-Weld Group.

A second effort at firing up the natural gas project seemed headed to derailment at midweek, but the candidate that would benefit from the collapse is keeping silent on its own readiness to step in.

A licence was issued to Energy World International to build a 381 MW LNG-fired plant on April 14, but the company has failed to secure backing for the project from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), which indicated that it viewed the procurement process that selected EWI as flawed.

EWI missed the payment window for its performance bond of US$36.85m, which was due to the Office of Utilities Regulation on April 24, but said it had made the payment on Wednesday. The company previously paid US$7.37m as a bid bond on its US$737m project. It still needs to tie down financing for the full project.

The next candidate in line to do a deal with the OUR is Energise Jamaica, a consortium led by Tank Weld Group and Musson Jamaica.

“Our Energise group has decided not to comment at this time. We want to see how the government is going to play this out. So we have decided to wait on the Government’s next move in this process.” said Tank Weld CEO Chris Bicknell on Wednesday.

HIGHER PRICE

Energise’s bid would deliver electricity to the grid at a more expensive price, US$0.1827. EWI’s project is predicated on pricing of US$0.1288. The first candidate, which failed to pay over its bond and lost out on the deal, Azurest-Cambridge, had proposed to deliver power at US$0.1390.

The OUR said last October that Energise proposes to run its plant initially on heavy fuel oil at a price of US$0.2154 for one to two years after which it expects to switch to natural gas.

Technically, Azurest’s second bid option, a heavy-fuel oil plant, also beat out Energise’s natural gas price, but it’s unclear whether the OUR is obliged to offer the American company another shot at a deal. A request for clarification was unanswered up to press time.

Energise is yet to disclose its expected sourcing of natural gas and how it will finance its project. Bicknell declined to answer those questions Wednesday as the EWI issue continued to play itself out.

Energise said previously that it has mobilised equity backers willing to put up capital in excess of US$60 million, and that its project would lead to 25 per cent savings on electricity costs.

Energy Minister Phillip Paulwell made it clear on Tuesday that he was willing to go to the mat for EWI and would seek to sway the IDB’s decision to a yes on financing for the Hong Kong-based but Australian-connected firm.

The licence issued to EWI on April 14 was amended to remove a stipulation that the Energy Minister could take over the project during the construction phase if work on the plant had stopped for more than two days, but it maintains aspects of the ‘step-in’ or takeover provisions after the plant has been commissioned. These provisions allow the minister to acquire the plant if it is idle for more than 180 days but Jamaica would have to compensate EWI 75 per cent of the estimated present value of the business, based on its current and future cash flows projected out for 15 years.

The initial compensation in the April 4 version of the licence was 50 per cent.

How the OUR first ranked the LNG bids:

Rank Bidder Bid Price Fuel Type

1 Azurest-Cambridge 13.90 US c/kWh Natural gas

2 EWI 14.56 US c/kWhNatural gas

3 Azurest-Cambridge 16.35 US c/kWh Heavy fuel oil

4 Energise 18.27 US c/kWh Natural gas

5 Optimal 18.30 US c/kWh Natural gas

6 Energise 21.54 US c/kWh Heavy fuel oil

EWI later revised its price down to 12.88 US cents/kWh.

Jamaica Gleaner;

Electricity Government LNG News

Company with Jamaican connection offers to bail out EWI

May 2, 2014 Webmaster

Chinese Company

A Chinese company based here has approached the Government’s investment company, Jamaica Promotions Corporation (Jampro), with a view to assist with the fallout arising from Energy World International’s (EWI‘s) failed bid to meet all the requirements to construct a booster energy plant on the island.

A usually reliable source told the Jamaica Observer that officials of the Chinese company met with executives of Jampro in New Kingston yesterday and offered to work with the island to get the project off the ground.

“During the meeting with Jampro, the Chinese suggested that they were willing to work with EWI, and vowed that they could secure the necessary financing from China’s Ex-Im Bank to get the 381-megawatt project going,” the source said.

“The Chinese have said that they were also willing to meet with the Ministry of Science, Technology, Energy, and Mining as early as tomorrow (today) to get things started,” the impeccable source said.

Hong Kong-based EWI missed its deadline to pay a performance bond of US$37 million last Thursday.

The total cost of financing the project is US$737 million, of which one per cent — US$7.37 million — had been paid over as part of the bond arrangement.

However, EWI was pushed against the wall after it emerged that the Inter-American Development Bank, upon which EWI was relying to provide non-equity financing for the project, had opted against doing so, citing breaches of Jamaica’s procurement procedures in the award of the contract.

EWI was the preferred bidder to build a power plant that would bolster the national grid by supplying it with 381 megawatts of generating capacity.

The implementation of the natural gas-fuelled project would result in Jamaicans paying less for electricity, the cost of which is prohibitive to some, and has led to widespread stealing of the commodity. Jamaicans pay 42 US cents per kilowatt hour for electricity, and it is believed that when the project is fully implemented the cost will be reduced by approximately 30 per cent.

EWI has committed to deliver electricity to the grid at 12.88 US cents per kilowatt hour.

The latest move by the Chinese company would serve as the fillip that the embattled EWI needs, following countless calls for the company to be rejected as the preferred choice of generating capacity supplier.

The Office of the Contractor General (OCG) had said in a report last year that Energy Minister Phillip Paulwell intervened improperly in the bidding process by including EWI’s proposal after the closure of the bid acceptance period.

Based on that, the OCG said that the bidding process had been compromised and described the Office of Utilities Regulation’s (OUR’s) acceptance of EWI’s proposal as unfair.

Paulwell has been under fire in recent days, with the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party calling on Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller to relieve him of portfolio responsibility for energy over the EWI affair.

Another source said that Simpson Miller met yesterday with members of the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica, who suggested that she abandon the entire process of selection and allow a special monitoring committee to handle affairs relating to the matter.

Simpson Miller, the source said, had already laid down some conditionalities to EWI and expects the company to respond to her by Monday.

EWI, the energy arm of Energy World Corporation, is engaged in the production and sale of power and natural gas in several countries.

The company was the second preferred bidder behind United States-based consortium Azurest-Cambridge, but was upgraded last October when Azurest was disqualified after it failed to meet a 15-day deadline to produce a one per cent security bid for the project, which it projected would cost US$690 million to build.

Jamaica Observer;

Electricity Government JPS News

JPS goes after $10-b annual return

April 17, 2014 Webmaster

Electricity distributor seeks up to 93% rate hike

JPS goes after $10-b annual return

JAMAICA Public Service Company (JPS) is hoping to clear US$94-million ($10.3 billion) profit a year should its proposed rate hike be approved.

The light and power company applied to the Office of Utilities Regulations (OUR) for a raft of changes to its non-fuel tariff (the rate that recovers cost associated with transmitting and distributing electricity rather than generating it).

Residential customers will see the monthly charge for network access (which up to now has been called the customer charge) increase by a range of 70 per cent to 420 per cent, depending on usage, if JPS gets its way.

What’s more, the monopoly electricity distributor hopes to raise the non-fuel, or energy charge to households by a range of 48 per cent to 93 per cent, moving from the lower end of the range to the higher end, the more electricity is used.

For commercial customers, the rates for which JPS has applied, decreases with higher usage, supposedly to promote greater use of electricity for business purposes.

On the other hand, the utility proposes a 65 per cent increase for the smallest commercial users, while enterprises can’t realise a decrease in the overall rate until they have consumed some 140,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh).

Indeed, the utility devised creative ways of encouraging more efficient consumption, such as recommending to the regulator that it altogether remove the non-fuel rate charged to large industrial customers.

That would see JPS give up just under $5 billion in revenue, which it would earn back from proposed increases to the demand charge that are applied to bills of consumers with heavy-duty electric machinery.

When factoring in the fuel charge, the rate hikes might not seem so daunting.

JPS figures that using a fuel rate of 23 US cents per kWh, the residential tariff increases, on average, by 22 per cent. Most commerical customers, or 98 per cent of them would see an average increase of 16 per cent, using the same math.

Of course, the proposed non-fuel tariff rates coupled with the fuel rates would put the cost of electricity at 45 US cents per kWh for the average household and 43 US cents per kWh for the overwhelming majority of commercial customers.

In its latest five-year tariff review application, JPS rationalised that it accumulated net profit of US$96 million, or an average of US$24 milion a year, from 2010 to 2013.

“The target profit for JPS, allowed (not guaranteed) through the revenue requirement, has never been achieved, representing an allowed return on equity (ROE) of 16 per cent that was approved in 2009, which should have resulted in a net profit of approximately US$43 million per annum”, said JPS of its profit performance over the tariff period that recently ended.

High system losses over the period factored heavily in its shortfall.

The utility company estimated that it was not allowed to recover US$111 million in fuel costs due to penalties from 2009 to 2013.

“The magnitude of the penalty varies with the price of oil and the risk exposure was amplified with the spike in the price of oil over the past two years,” said the light and distribution company. “At the end of 2013 losses, technical (8.6 per cent) and non-technical (largely theft –18.04 per cent), stood at a total of 26.64 per cent.”

Jamaica Observer;

Electricity Government LNG News

Paulwell issues energy licence, but silent on safeguards

April 17, 2014 Webmaster

Energy Minister Phillip Paulwell

MINISTER of Science, Technology, Energy, and Mining Phillip Paulwell announced yesterday that he has granted Energy World International (EWI) a licence to supply electric power to the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS), under the terms of the Power Purchase Agreement between the two entities.

However, the minister’s statement that he granted the licence to EWI on Monday did not address the controversial issue of whether critical safeguards, including the US$37 million performance bond, which must be provided by EWI within 10 days of the date the licence becomes effective, was included.

In the release, Paulwell admitted that he had granted a licence to EWI from as early as April 4, but had withdrawn the original one, amended it to provide for some negotiated changes, and reissued it 10 days later (April 14).

Paulwell’s statement said that the second included “a draft implementation agreement between the Government of Jamaica and EWI, outlining commitments of both parties to employ best efforts to ensure the success of this very important project”. However, with no specificity, it could not be ascertained how much attention has been paid to the call by the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) and the Energy Monitoring Committee (EMC) for the critical safeguards to be maintained.

Speaking at a Kiwanis Club luncheon just hours before the minister’s press release, PSOJ president, Chris Zacca, pointed out that the 381-megawatt plant to be built by EWI was critical in terms of the retirement of old, inefficient equipment being used by the JPS, which have been contributing to high electricity costs.

Zacca said that he was happy that Paulwell has assured the country that the public/private EMC will remain in place for the duration of the project, as it can play a very important role in providing transparency as the project moves into the implementation stage. However, he criticised the silence of the minister on the questions of ensuring that EWI keeps its promises, including: financing; construction timelines; fuel supply; and, most importantly, the provision of the five per cent, or US$37-million performance bond.

“This provision for posting a performance bond has been in existence from day one of the start of this process. I am advised that the Energy Monitoring Committee also views these safeguards as absolutely necessary, given the lack of information so far provided,” Zacca noted.

Paulwell, meanwhile, promised to meet shortly with the EMC to provide an update on both the licence and the draft implementation agreement before making documents public.

Jamaica Observer;

Electricity Government LNG News

Pressure On Paulwell – Private Sector Groups Demand Minister State Position On Disbanding EMC

April 14, 2014 Webmaster

Pengelley

ENERGY MINISTER Phillip Paulwell is facing demands that he state his position on the future of the Energy Monitoring Committee (EMC), which The Sunday Gleaner yesterday reported is to be disbanded.

Key private sector groupings such as the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ), the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce (JCC), and the Jamaica Manufacturers’ Associa-tion (JMA) have reacted to the report with fury, stating that they “cannot understand why the minister would be considering disbanding this committee this early in the project”.

The EMC was established by Cabinet as part of its mandate to monitor the bid process for the 360-megawatt generation facility, ensuring that it strictly adheres to the arrangements prescribed by the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR).

The committee is also charged with ensuring that at the end of the process, the price of electricity provided by the licensee to the Jamaica Public Service Company does not exceed the agreed price per kilowatt hour.

“We would very much appreciate hearing from the minister his reasons for not wanting the committee to pursue its mandate,” the JMA and the JCC said in a joint media release.

The EMC is made up of nine members from the Government, the private sector, and the trade union movement.

The Sunday Gleaner

Electricity Government LNG News

No Defying OUR – Paulwell To Grant 381MW Licence To EWI, Cites Fear Of Court Action

April 3, 2014 Webmaster

Energy Minister Phillip Paulwell. – File

Energy Minister Phillip Paulwell yesterday revealed he has no intention of going against an Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR) recommendation to grant a licence to Energy World International (EWI).

Paulwell, who returned to the island from St Lucia yesterday afternoon, said “once the OUR recommends to me a licence, I sign”.

He added: “They have taken me to court before, I won’t risk that again.”

Said Paulwell: “They have submitted to me, since I returned as minister (in January 2012), over 120 electricity licences, I have signed every single one of them. I am going to my desk now and I report in the morning.”

The OUR last Wednesday recommended that EWI be granted a licence to supply 381 megawatts of generating capacity using natural gas as the fuel source.

But several voices have come out in opposition to the licence being issued to the Hong Kong-based company, with the Office of the Contractor General, members of civil society, the Energy Monitoring Committee (EMC), and the private sector urging Paulwell to proceed with caution.

However, the minister yesterday indicated he has a legal obligation, under the OUR Act, to grant the licence.

“I am a creature of the law and rules, and there are certain rules that govern my operation and one of which is that you have a body called the OUR, and there are some regulations, and once they recommend to the minister a licence, it would be a serious matter to go against them,” Paulwell said.

LACK OF INFORMATION

In the meantime, the EMC said it remained concerned about the lack of adequate information provided by the EWI to support its application for a licence to construct the plant.

However, Peter Melhado, co-chair of the EMC, said the OUR was the body with the authority to make such recommendations and the committee has no choice but to accept it.

Melhado said the EMC would now turn its attention to ensuring that EWI adheres to all aspects of the licence.

“Our focus will definitely be on certainly commenting if we see any variant between … what is in the licence and the PPA (power purchase agreement) … and if there are any breaches,” he said.

Jamaica Gleaner;

Alternative Energy Electricity Energy Saving Government News Solar Energy

Has Mr Pickersgill been sidelined on Goat Islands?

March 7, 2014 Webmaster

AS the discussion about the building of a port at Goat Islands heats up, we note that the minister with responsibility for environment and climate change, Mr Robert Pickersgill, has been silent on the subject.

Minister Pickersgill’s absence from the debate is especially glaring because it was he, while on a five-day visit to China with Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller and her team last August, who brought the matter into the public domain when he told representatives of China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC) that the location was “now under very serious consideration”.

It’s glaring, too, given the environmental implications of building port facilities, with the accompanying infrastructure, in an area zoned for fish sanctuaries, game reserves, and housing what is perhaps the most pristine dry limestone forest in the region.

Housing, Transport and Works Minister Dr Omar Davies has been the one doing all the talking on this issue. To date, the most details the country has been fed about the much-talked-about project came in his presentation to Parliament last week Tuesday in which he outlined the basic scope of the works.

According to Dr Davies, the activities to be carried out under phase one include dredging and land reclamation, the construction of berths, warehouses, an industrial park, a container terminal, bridges, roads, pipelines, sewage lines and a sewage treatment plant.

CHEC intends, too, to build a coal-fired plant to avoid the high cost of electricity provided by the Jamaica Public Service Company.

While we maintain that environmental preservation and development do not have to be at odds with each other, we cannot overlook the effect of burning coal on air quality. In China, for instance, coal is used for about 65 per cent of its energy needs, but the Government is now seeking to cut its reliance on the fuel source by two percentage points a year.

Importantly, when coal is burned, it releases carbon dioxide, the main culprit in global warming and climate change.

On that basis, as Ms Dianna McCaulay rightly pointed out last week, the decision to allow such a plant in Jamaica is not in line with the country’s draft climate change policy. Neither does it appear to be in line with Vision 2030, which seeks to phase out fossil fuels to the point where 20 per cent of the energy mix will be supplied by renewable sources by 2030.

Surely, the apparent contradictions have not escaped Minister Pickersgill and the technocrats in his ministry. What, then, accounts for his silence?

Is the minister toeing the party line, or is he no longer committed to his oft repeated phrase “with climate change we must change”?

Jamaica Observer;

Alternative Energy Electricity Energy Saving News Solar Energy

Solar power: Making it less expensive and more efficient

March 4, 2014 Webmaster

University of Cincinnati researchers are reporting early results on a way to make solar-powered panels in lights, calculators and roofs lighter, less expensive, more flexible (therefore less breakable) and more efficient.

Fei Yu, a University of Cincinnati doctoral student in materials engineering, presented new findings on boosting the power conversion efficiency of polymer solar cells on March 3, at the American Physical Society Meeting in Denver.

Yu is experimenting with adding a small fraction of graphene nanoflakes to polymer-blend bulk-heterojunction (BHJ) solar cells to improve performance and lower costs of solar energy.

“There has been a lot of study on how to make plastic solar cells more efficient, so they can take the place of silicon solar cells in the future,” says Yu. “They can be made into thinner, lighter and more flexible panels. However, they’re currently not as efficient as silicon solar cells, so we’re examining how to increase that efficiency.”

Imagine accidentally kicking over a silicon solar-powered garden light, only to see the solar-powered cell crack. Polymers are carbon-based materials that are more flexible than the traditional, fragile silicon solar cells. Charge transport, though, has been a limiting factor for polymer solar cell performance.

Graphene, a natural form of carbon, is a relatively newly discovered material that’s less than a nanometer thin. “Because graphene is pure carbon, its charge conductivity is very high,” explains Yu. “We want to maximize the energy being absorbed by the solar cell, so we are increasing the ratio of the donor to acceptor and we’re using a very low fraction of graphene to achieve that.”

Yu’s research found that efficiency increased threefold by adding graphene, because the material was helping to rapidly transport charges to achieve higher photocurrent. “The increased performance, although well below the highest efficiency achieved in organic photovoltaic (OPV) devices, is nevertheless significant in indicating that pristine graphene can be used as a charge transporter,” says Yu.

Yu’s advisor, Vikram K. Kuppa, an assistant professor in the School of Energy, Environmental, Biological and Medical Engineering (SEEBME) for the UC College of Engineering and Applied Sciences (CEAS), was a contributor to the research. Kuppa is leading the research of a variety of polymer-blend solar cells involving the use of graphene.

Future research will focus on device physics, film morphology and how to control and optimize these randomly distributed graphene nanoflakes by a variety of methods to achieve better performance.

Science Daily;

1 … 21 22 23 24 25 … 39