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JPS Announces Preferred Bidder For Old Harbour Plant

November 20, 2015 Webmaster

The Jamaica Public Service Company Limited (JPS) has announced the selection of Spanish firm Abengoa as the preferred bidder to build the 190 megawatt Combined Cycle plant in Old Harbor, St Catherine.

The announcement follows the approval by the Electricity Sector Enterprise Team for the company to start negotiations with US-based New Fortress Energy for the supply of natural gas to the plant.

The JPS says once contracted, Abengoa will be responsible for the design, engineering and construction work on the plant.

It will be built close to company’s existing power station in Old Harbour Bay.

The JPS says it is in the process of procuring the necessary permits for the construction of the plant.

It says as part of its public education, it has shared the Environmental Impact Assessment on its website and will host a public consultation meeting next Tuesday in Old Harbour Bay.

The JPS says the gas terminal and the new gas-fired power plant will allow it to retire 220 megawatts of existing oil-fired steam generation units at Old Harbour and Hunts Bay in 2018.

It says this will ultimately result in a reduction of over 1.2 million barrels of oil per year and allow for power generation below 13 United States cents per kilowatt hours.

The Gleaner

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Apple will run all its operations in Singapore on Solar Power

November 19, 2015 Webmaster

Apple will power all its operations in Singapore—including its first retail location in there–with renewable energy. The iPhone maker confirmed to Reuters on Sunday (Nov. 15) that Singapore-based solar developer Sunseap Group will provide it with 100% renewable electricity from solar energy systems built atop more than 800 buildings.
The systems will generate 50 megawatts of solar energy, enough to power the equivalent of 9,000 homes. Apple will receive 33 MW of the new project’s capacity, according to Reuters.
The news is the latest in a string of Apple announcements about renewable energy. In October it announced it would build 200 MW of solar power in China and push suppliers to make similar commitments. That came on top of two previously announced solar farms in the country producing a combined 4 MW of power.
Earlier this year Apple said it was partnering with First Solar to build a massive farm of solar panels to power its upcoming “Campus 2” headquarters in California. The “spaceship campus” will be powered entirely by renewable energy sources, the company has said.

“We’re doing this because it’s right to do,” Tim Cook said at the time to an audience at a Goldman Sachs event. “But you may also be interested to know that it’s good financially to do it.”
In any case, Apple can afford to make investments in renewable energy, however long they take to pay off.

Surprisingly, Apple does not yet have a retail store in Singapore, a major shopping hub in Southeast Asia. The city-state gets hordes of shoppers from nearby countries, especially Indonesia, the world’s fourth most populous nation. This year, Jakarta alone will send Singapore some 1.7 million visitors, who will spend about $2.7 billion, according to the MasterCard 2015 Global Destination Cities Index.
Apple products in Singapore are currently sold through third-party retailers, mobile carriers, and its online store. The company did not disclose the exact location of the upcoming store, but the Straits Times reported last month on a fitness chain moving out of a prime spot on Orchard Road—Singapore’s leafy, mall-lined shopping mecca—to “make way for Singapore’s first Apple store in 2016.”

Quartz

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OUR No Longer Responsible For Net Billing Programme

November 13, 2015 Webmaster

The Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR) has announced that it no longer has responsibility for the Net Billing Programme.

The net-billing system, which was introduced in 2012, allows persons who own renewable energy generators to generate electricity for personal use, and sell excess energy to the national grid.

This process was being led by the OUR.

However, the OUR said the deletion of Condition 18 of the Amended and Restated All-Island Electric Licence and the provisions in the Electricity Act, 2015, which came into effect in August, means that it no longer has authority to lawfully engage in the addition of generating capacity to the national grid.

ELECTRICITY ACT

It said Section 9 (2) of the Electricity Act specifically excludes the OUR’s involvement in accepting applications and making recommendations to the minister of science, technology, energy and mining for licences.

The OUR said that section provides that the minister has exclusive authority over the issuing of licences.

The OUR said that as a result, it cannot lawfully assume responsibility for the licensing process and, therefore, it considers its substantive role in the Net Billing Programme at an end.

The Gleaner

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Environmentally friendly Green Village homes up for sale

November 10, 2015 Webmaster

POTENTIAL home owners in search of environmentally friendly surroundings have just got lucky.

Developers of what is being touted as Jamaica’s “first green residential community” last week broke ground for the construction of 114 energy-efficient homes in Greendale, St Catherine, called Green Village.

Project manager Paul Soegaard told the Jamaica Observer that the phased development will begin later this month and is expected to cost roughly $1 billion. He added that the developers are looking to employ up to 200 individuals to complete the project.

The gated community features 48 two-bedroom single-family homes, 24 two-bedroom apartments and 42 super studio apartments, spanning roughly 930, 717 and 475 square feet respectively.

Starting at $7.9 million, the complex is located a few metres before entering Spanish Town and is overlooked by the well established residential community, St Jago Heights. Amenities of the community include a swimming pool, clubhouse, BBQ and green area and a play area.

The development is a joint financing project with the National Housing Trust and the Green Village Country Club developers.

“Under a short- to medium-term housing programme developed by the NHT, some 9,000 housing solutions will be funded by the Trust over the next two years to enable thousands of families to realise their dream of owning a home,” the NHT stated in a release to the public.

The government agency hopes to boost the housing solutions available to contributors and noted that some 42 housing solutions are currently buimg built across the island. Of that number, St Catherine has a total of 11 developments including the Green Village, followed by Clarendon and Kingston and St Andrew, which each have seven developments.

“It’s driven by fundamentals,” Soegaard told the Sunday Finance. “First of all, attainable lands are not easy to find these days and this development is really the closest to Kingston. That’s the main driver.

“We were lucky enough to own these lands for a number of years, and with the demand for housing we just decided to build the first green housing development in Jamaica. There is great demand for housing coming out of the Kingston area, spilling all the way over to Old Harbour as annual surveys by the NHT indicates.

“The connection to the Green Village in Greendale, St Catherine, is by coincidence, our name is driven by best practices and building strategies, but I think they complement each other,” the project manager stated.

Green Village is designed to be energy-efficient and includes features such as solar water heaters, water and energy-reducing features for faucets and toilets. The development is also designed to take advantage of passive energy and natural light instead of purchased electricity or natural gas.

“It means that the houses are built of aerated concrete to foster cooler homes than the traditional ones and designed so that you can get a lot of sunlight without the rays passing through,” Soegaard explained.

The architectural design of the complex also provides for renewable energy-powered street lighting, Bahamas sun shades which also function as hurricane shutters and burglar bars, biodigester and reed bed sewage treatment plants which give a much higher level of treatment than septic tanks, storm water retention, grey water recycling, and xeriscaping — the practice of landscaping the common area with plants that use little to no water.

With regards to further expansion, Soegaard says there are plans underway for the development of a second phase based on sales demand.

“It’s dependent on a number of factors, but we have the option to do a phase two — though nothing is confirmed at this point,” he said.

BY KARENA BENNETT

The Observer

News

Jamaicans walk for the climate

November 4, 2015 Webmaster

MORE than 1,500 people joined Environmental Solutions Limited on October 24 — the International Day of Climate Action– when it staged Jamaica’s Climate Walk in Kingston under the theme Walk for Health Stand for Earth.

Participants trekked from Emancipation Park up Knutsford Boulevard, onto Trafalgar Road, down Hope Road, down Half-Way-Tree Road, and back to Emancipation Park via Oxford Road. The intention was to heighten public awareness about the impact of climate change, as well as mitigation and adaptation measures. For those of you who missed it, here are some shots by ace photographer Michael Gordon.

The Observer

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CaPRI to present country report on renewable energy options in Barbados

November 2, 2015 Webmaster

CO-EXECUTIVE director of The Caribbean Policy Research Institute (CaPRI), Dr Christopher Tufton, will this week travel to Barbados to chair a workshop on Barbados’ country report on renewable energy options at the Caribbean Development Bank Conference Centre in St Michael.

With funding from the European Union (EU) under its Energy Facility II programme, CaPRI has been implementing the ‘Frameworks, Policies and Instruments for Mobilising Renewable Energy in the Caribbean’ project over the past two and a half years.

The overall objective of the project is to empower both the public and private sectors and other energy consumers in the Caribbean to make informed decisions on renewable energy investments, and to provide input to policymaking in order to create an enabling environment to accelerate such investment.

The workshop will present the country report which included analyses of renewable energy technology options as well as a number of tools aimed at the public and private sector, including:

*Technology assessment tool — an online calculator which will enable Caribbean businesses and energy consumers to size and cost renewable energy systems to meet their energy needs;

* Renewable energy financing database — a searchable database of local and international financing schemes to allow energy consumers, businesses and project developers to identify appropriate financing for their renewable energy projects, large and small;

* Policies and incentives database — a complete database of incentives available for renewable energy investments in the Caribbean;

*Cost benefit analysis tool.

According to Tufton, the workshop will also include a practical session using the cost benefit tool, and an opportunity for participants to provide feedback on its usefulness. So far CaPRI has presented country reports in Haiti, St Kitts and Nevis, Grenada, and Jamaica with Barbados and Guyana left.

This CaPRI EU programme is valued at approximately 500,000 Euros over four years and represents the most in-depth database on renewable energy in the Caribbean.

CaPRI is hopeful that this database will be used by policymakers, the private sector and the general public to increase the use of renewables in the region, Tufton said.

The Observer

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UTech to unveil findings of cooking with hydrogen study

October 30, 2015 Webmaster

University of Technology Jamaica (UTech) File Photo

THE findings of a University of Technology, Jamaica (UTech)-led research project focusing on the sustainable production of hydrogen as a fuel for domestic cooking will form the basis of presentations and discussions at an International Hydrogen Conference and Exhibition being hosted by UTech at its Papine campus, November 3 – 4, 2015. The conference is first of its kind in the Caribbean region.

In 2012, UTech, along with research partners from Brunel University, United Kingdom; University of the West Indies; Bureau of Standards Jamaica; and the Ministry of Science, Technology, Energy, and Mining began a research project on ‘The Application of Solar-Powered Polymer Electrolyte Membrane (PEM) Electrolysers for the Sustainable Production of Hydrogen Gas as Fuel for Domestic Cooking’. The project is co-funded by the European Union under the ACP Caribbean & Pacific Research Programme for Sustainable Development.

Dr Ruth Potopsingh, Associate Vice- President, Caribbean Sustainable Energy & Innovation Institute in the School of Graduate Studies, Research and Entrepreneurship at UTech, and coordinator of the conference, explains that the issue of hydrogen as a sustainable energy source is particularly relevant to Jamaica at this time.

“The use of hydrogen, whether for cooking at the household or commercial level, clean transportation fuel or utility scale applications, such as power to gas, are options which the Caribbean region needs to further examine,” she said.

Conference presentations by local and international research experts will highlight global trends in hydrogen as a key enabling pathway for renewable energy applications. Thematic areas to be examined include hydrogen from renewable resources, environmental issues and climate change, hydrogen as a transportation fuel, the future of hydrogen technology, hydrogen storage systems, education and public awareness for using hydrogen as a domestic fuel, and case studies on successful hydrogen projects.

Keynote speakers will be:

* Phillip Paulwell, minister of Science, Technology, Energy, and Mining (MSTEM)

* Paola Amadei, ambassador, head of delegation of the European Union in Jamaica

* Prof Maria Kolokotroni, Professor / theme leader for Resource Efficient Future Cities at Brunel University

* Dr Andrei Tchouvelev, Chairman of ISO’s primary technical committee on hydrogen technologies based in Canada.

Other presenters include the project research team led by Dr Earle Wilson, lecturer, School of Engineering, UTech; Dr Zahir Dehouche, Brunel University; Dr Kurt Edward, UWI; Omar Alcock, MSTEM; and Hunstan Hunter, Bureau of Standards, Jamaica. Presentations will also be delivered by representatives from industry and the European Union ACP Research Programme for Sustainable Development.

The international hydrogen conference will also include an exhibition featuring faculty and student research as well as innovations and service providers from the local energy sector. It will be free and open to the public, but participants are being asked to register owing to limited capacity. The public exhibition opens to the public from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm on each day. Further information is available at http://www.solarhydrogen.utechsapna.com or via email CSEII@Utech.edu.jm.

The Observer

Alternative Energy Government News

Caricom environment ministers meeting in St Lucia

October 29, 2015 Webmaster

CASTRIES, St Lucia (CMC) — Caribbean Community (Caricom) ministers and climate change negotiators began a two-day meeting here yesterday to fine-tune the region`s negotiating position ahead of the 21st session of the Conference of Parties (COP 21) to be held in Paris later next month.

The November 30 to December 11 conference forms part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change UNFCC).

The meeting here is a follow-up to a similar one held here in September and the organisers said the objective is to prepare the ministers to engage in the pre-COP meeting which will be organised by the COP Presidency in November.

“With just over one month before the start of COP 21 and on the heels of a climate negotiators preparatory meetings held earlier this month in Bonn, Germany, it is an opportune time for Caricom negotiators and ministers to be updated on the critical issues, especially those with implications for Small Island Developing States and to concretise position(s) going to Paris.”

The ministers will be apprised of the state of climate change negotiations under the UNFCC for a new climate change agreement to be finalised at the COP 21.

The meeting here is being organised by the Ministry of Sustainable Development, Energy, Science and Technology, the High Level Support Mechanism and the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre.

The Observer

Government News

Jamaica To Benefit From UN Climate Population Project

October 28, 2015 Webmaster

An in-depth look at the population’s resistance to climate change, in addition to an analysis on vulnerable groups in the country, are among several issues that will be integral in the new Population Dynamics and Climate Change Resilience project, to be undertaken by the United Nations Populations Fund (UNFPA).

Daniel Schensul and Sainan Zhang, who are both technical specialists at the UNFPA headquarters in New York, told The Gleaner in an interview on Friday, that there needs to be more robust research that focuses on people, in order to adapt effectively to the impact of climate change.

Massive Changes

“The people are very critical in the fight to mitigate against the impacts of climate change and this project will zoom in on just that. The aim is to have comprehensive data with the use of new technology that enables us to know a lot more about the population at every level, understanding what factors make them more vulnerable or more resilient to massive changes to the climate change,” Schensul said at the UNFPA offices in New Kingston.

“This will definitely be an asset for policymakers, as the plan is to cover the whole country at the community level. We will be looking at what kind of houses people live in, where they live, specifically down to their neighbourhood, their education, occupation, access to services and every other information that will be essential as to how well people are able to adapt to climate change,” he continued.

“This new technology will pull all of that information together, because if you don’t know that it is happening you can’t do anything about it.”

Strong Linkage

“We see a lot of projects and data looking at the environmental side, which means there are a lot of infrastructural programmes such as the building of sea walls and initiatives to protect the economy, but, at the end of the day when flood comes, people’s lives will still be at risk.”

Similarly, Sandra Paredez, a census technical adviser based in Jamaica, who noted that the group has collaborated with the Planning Institute of Jamaica, said there was a strong linkage between population dynamics and climate change, resilience.

“We see more and more that there are strong linkages between population dynamics and climate change, and so I believe that this project will fill gaps that exist, especially how we treat with the allocation of resources,” she said.

“We will be using the 2011 census data and exploring the use of the 2001 data to see how best we can explore issues such as the elderly population, age structures and the different vulnerable groups in order to fully analyse the different dimensions of vulnerabilities that exist,” she said.

“I believe we are filling a gap, because people are in a position to influence and they are also the ones being impacted, so all plans have to be centred on them. While we want to save forests and address water issues, it is because it affects people’s lives and that is what the UN tries to focus on – who gets affected, where they are located and what makes them vulnerable to these environmental factors due to climate change.”

The Gleaner

Electricity News

Amendments to OUR Act will facilitate investment in electricity sector

October 27, 2015 Webmaster

KINGSTON, Jamaica — The amendments to the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR) Act will facilitate increased investment in the country’s electricity sector and make the entity’s governance structure more transparent and accountable.

This was the word from minister of justice, Senator Mark Golding, in his contribution to the debate on the Bill in the Senate on Friday, which was passed.

He noted that the mechanism used by the OUR to set tariffs has discouraged the levels of investment needed to develop Jamaica’s baseload capacity, which is crucial for the country’s economic development.

“Jamaica needs to attract substantial private sector investment capital, much of it from international investors, to the electricity sector, in order to achieve urgent national priorities on which the competitiveness and growth of the economy depends,” he said.

Describing the OUR governance structure as “outdated,” and “problematic,” Golding said the entity is affected by very limited governance arrangements in “which excessive power is concentrated within an internal bureaucratic structure, which lacks robust checks and balances, and has ineffective accountability.”

He told the Upper House that the issues will be addressed by requiring the OUR to be guided by the amended Act, the All-Island Electric Licence of 2011, and certain specified principles, when setting tariffs for the electricity sector.

“This more transparent decision-making system is being supported by an expanded governance framework being built into the OUR’s structure as well as by this legislation,” he said.

The new provisions will require that the regulator, when setting rates, to take into account: the cost, safety and quality of the service being provided, as well as Jamaica’s economic development; special rates for consumers, who might not be able to pay the full cost of electricity, as well as those involved in economic development activities; and tariffs for special economic zones.

It will also facilitate the inclusion of non-executive members to the OUR, to provide oversight support.

The House of Representatives passed the amended Act on October 13.

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