Deputy official for China’s National People’s Congress, Liu Hanyuan, is chairman of the Board of Directors of Tongwei Group and co-chairman of the China Photovoltaic Agricultural Industry Technology Innovation Strategic Alliance. Liu spoke with reporters during the Two Sessions on climate change issues on March 8, 2023.
Chinese deputy official Liu Hanyuan said China’s is willing and ready to assist Caribbean regions with the transition to renewable energy, particularly solar, through collaboration and technological assistance.
Speaking with Loop News for the first session of the 14th National People’s Congress (NPC), Liu said because of the Caribbean’s sunny location solar is a good choice for alternative energy.
Liu said from the technical perspective it is possible to reduce the cost for solar energy, however in the Caribbean region photovoltaic (PV) systems are still being introduced. Another issue would be shipping, which contributes to higher costs.
He said however if there is enough demand this could help make solar more affordable.
“If there is the demand, the price would be cheaper and cost could be lower, and they could also enjoy the same prices as people in China.”
He added that there are no limitations with regard to the sharing of Chinese technology and skills in assisting the Caribbean region in the transition to solar energy.
“From the Chinese perspective of the government with regard to these enterprises, there are absolutely no limitations for the transmission of this technology into the Caribbean region. But we need two things, more demand and the new systems being established, which will help bring lower energy costs.”
He said however that once these systems are built the price of energy will be comparatively lower than fossil fuels.
He said it’s hoped that they can assist with the construction of more solar facilities to assist with the Caribbean region’s energy goals.
Liu, who is chairman of the Board of Directors of Tongwei Group and co-chairman of the China Photovoltaic Agricultural Industry Technology Innovation Strategic Alliance, said China’s green development strategy has clear goals for reducing C02 emissions, one of which is developing its solar energy production.
China is also open to developing and providing technological support for other countries in this regard via its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
Plans are also underway for the construction of the country’s largest solar energy project to be developed and executed by a consortium between Lightsource bp, bp Alternative Energy Trinidad and Tobago and Shell Renewables Caribbean.
It is the first joint project between the three entities.
The 148MW total is split over two sites, Brechin Castle (122MWp) and Orange Grove (26MWp), the latter of which will see bp and Shell collaborate with the University of the West Indies. Construction is expected to begin in Q1 2023, and operations in Q3-4 2024.
The project came about in response to the Trinidadian government’s request for proposal (RFP), seeking projects to contribute to the country’s commitment to lower greenhouse gas emissions in the power sector by 15 per cent by 2030.
Carlos Ramos spoke to CNN as he helped his friends clean up their flood-damaged beach home in Salinas. Ramos said most of his neighbors in Aguas Buenas, in the island’s central mountain range, were among those who lost power in the wake of the hurricane.
But Ramos’s home maintained power.
Frustrated by the rising cost of electricity and the ever-looming threat of power outages on the storm-stricken island, the 59-year-old retired bank worker had solar panels installed on his home.
“All my neighbors said I was crazy for getting the solar panels,” he told CNN. “Now they’re sitting in the dark. It was the best investment.”
World leaders are in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, this week for the UN’s COP27 climate summit where they are negotiating solutions to the climate crisis and haggling over how to help developing nations switch to clean energy and pay for extreme weather disasters.
But Caribbean leaders, residents and even utility companies say they are tired of waiting for world leaders to save them. Experts and residents tell CNN that the islands are now eagerly adapting on their own through grant funding, phasing out fossil fuels and advancing clean energy across the region, to make them better prepared for the worsening impacts of the climate crisis.
“We don’t have the luxury of being able to sit by and wait until the planet comes to an agreement,” Racquel Moses, CEO of the Caribbean Climate-Smart Accelerator, told CNN. “We have been waiting, and we have been trying to do the best that we can with the resources that we have. But we are not seeing enough momentum and we keep sustaining losses.”
Microgrids keep the lights on
In 2021, storm-ravaged Ragged Island in the Bahamas successfully developed a solar-powered microgrid so that the next time a storm hits, the lights can stay on.
Last year, the Bahamas successfully developed a solar-powered microgrid that provides renewable energy to every home on Ragged Island – a small island community which was devastated by Hurricane Irma. The Category 5 tore through the Caribbean in 2017, displaced thousands of people and leveled electric grids.
The Ragged Island electric project was designed so that the next time a storm hits and takes down the power system, the 390-kilowatt microgrid can disconnect from the main grid and keep the lights on for residents.
That project’s success created a ripple effect across the Bahamas, said David Gumbs, director of the Islands Energy Program at the Rocky Mountain Institute, a non-profit group that’s working to scale up clean energy programs to curtail global emissions. The country has now deployed even more microgrids to other islands, totaling nearly 6.5 megawatts of renewable power across the country — which is enough to power around 300 Caribbean houses.
“The project is definitely a success,” Gumbs told CNN. “We’re in the phase of transition. There are now a number of islands that are champions in big initiatives.”
Moses said 2017’s back-to-back hurricanes — first Irma, then Maria — was the turning point for the Caribbean, where residents and government leaders said they could no longer afford to wait and “be sitting ducks, hoping” that wealthy countries would rescue them from the climate crisis, or halt its acceleration.
“We are already under threat,” Moses said. “You’ve just seen Hurricane Fiona and what it’s done, not only to islands in the Caribbean, but also in the US – the most powerful economy on the planet – and yet responding to billions of dollars’ worth of damages is going to be problematic.”
The Caribbean islands contribute a tiny fraction to the climate crisis — less than 2% of planet-warming emissions, Moses said — yet they are on the frontlines when it comes to climate disasters.
And on top of the flooding, fallen trees, battered roads and broken infrastructure, soaring utility prices have become unaffordable, Gumbs said.
“When you’re paying four times as much for electricity, and your income is four times less than the average income in the US, it just creates such a hardship for people,” he said. “And those are the people we are worried about getting left behind.”
Future-proofing the Caribbean
Gumbs experienced the wrath of Irma himself in his home island of Anguilla, where at the time he was the CEO of the island’s utility company. Now with RMI, he has been overseeing this energy transition across the Caribbean region, redesigning the electricity grid to be free of fossil fuels and climate-resilient.
“There’s such an enormous opportunity,” Gumbs said. “We would love for it to happen at scale, to just transform the entire system to renewables tomorrow, but there are certain barriers to do that.”
At COP27, money is the biggest debate. Developing nations are putting more pressure on the world’s richest countries to help them recover from climate disasters. Negotiators will also discuss the existing promise of climate finance meant to help developing countries adapt to climate change and transition to clean energy – a $100 billion-a-year pledge that rich countries have yet to make good on.
A woman walks on a street in Saint-Martin on September 11, 2017, after Hurricane Irma.
But even then, Gumbs said it’s hard for low-income countries “tap into” those funds: “It just takes years to get the money out,” he said. “It’s always a problem, but there are a number of ways to overcome that.”
On Tuesday, RMI and investment fund Lion’s Head Global Partners launched a new Caribbean Climate-Smart Fund to accelerate that clean energy shift. The initiative intends to expand the islands’ access to resilient clean energy, which advocates say would help Caribbean nations not only adapt to a warmer future, but also save millions each year in utility costs.
Gumbs said the fund will comprise more than $150 million of philanthropic money and will be spread across more than 20 Caribbean islands.
Charlin Bodley, the global south manager for RMI, said wealthy countries must look beyond reducing their climate emissions – which she said is the “easy part” – and consider how they will support small island nations suffering the consequences of their fossil fuel use.
“There is a level of support that is necessary,” Bodley, who is based in St. Lucia, told CNN. “It’s really, at this point, a matter of survival for Caribbean.”
And because the Caribbean islands see clean energy as a solution to withstand disasters but also to save on electricity costs, Moses said the momentum and political interest across the region is growing, and island governments are turning to groups like RMI and other nonprofits for grant funding to pursue their clean energy goals.
But Gumbs said they still need more clean energy programs, educational resources for residents, as well as access to funds from grant-making entities. To him, the solutions are ready. He said the Caribbean might just be the model that would convince both wealthy nations and the private sector to invest in solutions through climate finance.
“Climate-smart funds provide a vehicle to eliminate a big part of the problem,” Gumbs said. “It’s important to bring people along with these solutions, and we’re going to do it in a way that’s sensitive to the local environment.”
Native Food Packers Limited, trading under the ‘Chippies’ brand, has been in operation for more than half a century and is well known for its various snacks including banana, plantain and breadfruit chips.
Over the years, the company adjusted its business model to suit the environment and is again making a move in another direction which will see it contribute to the environment by going solar.
Adrian Grant Jr, managing director of Native Food Packers Ltd, advised that the initiative to go “solar” was geared towards cutting costs, gaining a more competitive edge in the local global market and promoting an eco-friendly environment.
SOLAR PANEL INSTALLATION HAS DECREASED ENERGY COSTS
Grant further advised that CIBC FirstCaribbean has been their bank of choice, starting with his father.
Over the years, CIBC FirstCaribbean has supported the company, providing financial support including the recent solar project with panels installed by Solar Buzz Jamaica (SBJ).
He said that since the installation of the solar panels, energy cost has been decreased by more than 50 per cent and is expected to be reduced even more, which undoubtedly will improve the financial performance of the company and position it for further growth in the future.
CIBC FirstCaribbean is known for its financial strength, prudent management and the structuring and execution of various deals regionally including clean energy across the Caribbean and Latin America.
Annique Dawkins, head of corporate banking, Jamaica, said the bank is focused on supporting lending in diverse segments to facilitate savings and business transformation and was happy to support Native Food Packers Limited with this initiative.
“The Bank will continue to support its customers who are keen on responding to climate change by adopting green energy sources such as solar and wind-generated power, which do not emit greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming,” she said.
Celebrating the achievements of ‘Chippies’, Jason Robinson, CEO of Solar Buzz, said: “We are a renewable energy company with a focus on educating our clients on how to maximise their overall savings through solar energy and energy efficiency measures. We create detailed commercial proposals for renewable energy projects for presentation to financial institutions who are willing to lend for the purpose of Going Green. CIBC FirstCaribbean has plans to be a leader in financing renewables in Jamaica and Solar Buzz is excited to work with them to achieve this goal.”
Left to right: Annique Dawkins, Head of Corporate Banking CIBC FirstCaribbean; Adrian Grant Jr., Managing Director of Native Food Packers Ltd and Jason Robinson, CEO of Solar Buzz during a tour of the solar facilities at Native Food Packers Limited which was financed by CIBC FirstCaribbean
Native Food Packers Limited, trading under the Chippies brand, has been in operation for more than half a century and is well known for its various snacks including banana, plantain and breadfruit chips.
Over the years, the company adjusted its business model to suit the environment and is again doing so. This time, to go solar.
Adrian Grant Jr., Managing Director of Native Food Packers Ltd advised that the initiative, to go solar, is geared towards cutting costs, gaining a more competitive edge in the local global market and promoting an eco-friendly environment.
He further advised that CIBC FirstCaribbean has been their bank of choice which started with his father.
Over the years CIBC FirstCaribbean has supported the company, providing financial support including the recent solar project with panels installed by Solar Buzz Jamaica (SBJ).
He said that since the installation of the solar panels, the energy cost has been decreased by more than 50 per cent and is expected to be reduced even more which undoubtedly will improve the financial performance of the company and position it for further growth in the future.
CIBC FirstCaribbean is known for its financial strength, prudent management and the structuring and execution of various deals regionally including clean energy across the Caribbean and Latin America.
Annique Dawkins, Head of Corporate Banking, Jamaica said the bank is focused on supporting lending in diverse segments to facilitate savings and business transformation and was happy to support Native Food Packers Limited with this initiative.
“The bank will continue to support its customers who are keen on responding to climate change by adopting green energy sources such as solar and wind-generated power, which do not emit greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming”, she expanded.
Celebrating the achievements of “Chippies” Jason Robinson, CEO of Solar Buzz said, “we are a renewable energy company with a focus on educating our clients on how to maximise their overall savings through solar energy and energy efficiency measures. We create detailed commercial proposals for renewable energy projects for presentation to financial institutions who are willing to lend for the purpose of Going Green. CIBC FirstCaribbean has plans to be a leader in financing renewables in Jamaica and Solar Buzz is excited to work with them to achieve this goal.”
Outages during Christmas reflect poorly on utility forecasting and natural gas units. It’s past time for the states and their utilities to lead and not wait until the grid regulators Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and North American Electric Reliability Corporation conclude their joint investigation.
To ensure safety and reliability, utility leaders should pay consumers to reduce consumption, embrace distributed energy resources in their resource planning, and make interconnecting rooftop solar and residential storage easier.
The question is, however, will they?
Anticipating NERC’s response
FERC and NERC have announced a joint investigation into what happened in North Carolina during Winter Storm Elliot because of multiple outages during Christmas.
The economic and reliability regulators want to get in on regulation and standards after an event, but there is no focus or attention paid before. Maybe that’s just human tendency?
History has always told us, at least in the electric utility industry, that major regulations come after blackouts. The National Electric Reliability Council was formed after the 1965 blackout. Read about fascinating NERC history here (It’s only 177 pages!). NERC came out of regional councils such as Mid-Atlantic Area Coordination Group, which is now ReliabilityFirst.
The Council became a corporation —the North American Electric Reliability Corporation— after the Sep. 2003 blackout with the mandate to levy fines of up to $1 million per day if utilities violated reliability standards, including tree trimming regulations.
Incentivizing DERs before an event
Fast forward to Feb. 2021.
Did we learn anything from winter storm Uri in Texas? We have already forgotten that Texas went through a similar winter storm event a decade earlier, in 2011.
Yes, FERC and NERC jointly investigated and released a report back then. I am sure they will also release a report for Elliott, too. But the jury is still out on Uri’s lessons. A recent proposal in Texas to incentivize generators (not load) to ensure they show up during a grid emergency.
Look at what is happening right now in PJM
PJM just announced that it had more unit outages during the Christmas week than forecasted. If 23% of PJM’s total capacity was forced out, 87% was from natural gas and coal units. And we have executives from Duke Energy Carolinas apologizing for inconveniencing their customers during Christmas. These utilities and RTOs have not taken steps to incentivize demand response and distributed energy resources, yet they are the custodians of safety and reliability.
Why should they pay load to avoid blackouts? Because that’s how MISO avoided blackouts in Feb. 2021.
Utilities must speed up distributed resource interconnections via automation
Whenever the topic of distributed energy resources interconnection comes up, utilities always bring up the fact that they are responsible for the safety and reliability of the distribution grid. Never mind that those utilities have already studied these DER interconnections. They want to “screen” them again so that a solar project is not exporting more than it should when storage is added at the same site.
Solar interconnections can be severely limited on the distribution system due to capacity constraints that could be resolved without the cost and delay associated with major feeder upgrades. In some cases, voltage and current imbalance will limit the feeder capacity. This constraint exists even though capacity is available in other phases.
Companies like Switched Source offer a distribution automation solution, the Phase EQ, that will automatically balance the voltage and current to unlock the capacity of the feeder. In other cases, the ideal location to site a solar project may be served by a feeder at capacity; however, adjacent feeders have the capacity but are not tied together due to the risk of loop flows.
Switched Source also offers another distribution automation solution, the Tie Controller, that can enable adjacent feeders to be tied together and controls the power flow between them to balance the load on the feeders.
Utilities must embrace distribution automation solutions to identify feeders with phase imbalance issues or capacity constraints and deploy solutions to address the issues to enable more load and solar interconnections.
Utilities must reflect accurate modeling of distributed solar in resource plans
Whenever utilities have integrated resource plan (IRP) proceedings, renewable and environmental advocates must push the utilities to incorporate distributed solar in their future capacity expansion plans. It’s like pulling teeth.
The excuse utilities give for not including distributed solar in future resource plans is that they don’t have much capacity value compared to utility-scale solar or utility-scale natural gas plants.
But the recent Christmas event in PJM shows many more outages than forecasted on the system. Additionally, unanticipated outages led to capacity deficiencies in the New England region during Christmas. And the New England grid operator is levying non-performance penalties on non-performing units, but we won’t know who owns these units.
So why are the utilities and their regulators more focused on an antiquated integrated resource planning process that incentivizes more non-renewable generation and the transmission needed to interconnect, when we should be looking at more distributed options on the demand side?
To reduce the magnitude of a blackout or even the likelihood of entering into an emergency event, grid planners should be talking to policy professionals and educating them before it is too late. It is easy to think about policy during an emergency event. It is hard to think about the policy before an event.
It’s up to states to take action
Even after all these events in recent years and so many different slides and jazzy pictures from institutions like NOAA that show that multiple weather-related events are occurring more frequently, utilities are asking for rate recovery for generation and transmission but not interconnection of distributed resources and demand response compensation.
Policymakers and grid planners should gather once again in a workshop in each state and debate whether we are paying enough attention to demand and distributed resources and consumers generating their electricity.
Utilities should allow rooftop solar, residential batteries, and customer-sited storage solutions on the grid to avoid human loss during grid emergencies.
Amazon, Facebook parent company Meta and Google, owned by parent company Alphabet, are the top three corporate purchasers of wind and solar energy, according to a report published Wednesday from the American Clean Power Association, an industry group.
In total, 326 companies contracted 77.4 gigawatts of wind and solar energy by the end of 2022, which is enough energy to power over a thousand data centers or 18 million American homes.
Texas is benefitting more than any other state. Companies have bought clean energy from 540 projects located in 49 states, Washington DC and Puerto Rico, but 35% of contracted capacity bought by companies is coming from Texas, the report finds.
Technology companies are leading the charge of companies buying wind and solar power.
Amazon had contracted 12.4 gigawatts of clean wind and solar energy in the United States through September 2022, while Meta had contracted 8.7 gigawatts and Google had contracted 6.2 gigawatts, according to the report.
These procurement totals are since the first time these companies have announced they were buying wind and solar power last decade.
The technology sector is certainly outpacing other industries in buying clean power, but it’s been increasing across all industries. From 2012 to 2022, the amount of wind and solar energy bought by companies has increased by an average of 73 percent per year. It passed 1 gigawatt in 2015, 8 gigawatts in 2018, and nearly 20 gigawatts last year.
The switch is not just driven by a desire to save the world from climate change. The price of clean power has been falling steadily. In the past decade, the cost has fallen 71 percent and 47 percent, respectively, according to the report.
The technology sector is the clear leader when it comes to buying clean energy, and has contracted 48 percent of all wind and solar power. The energy, telecommunications and food and beverage sectors are the next largest corporate buyers and have contracted 9, 8 and 7 percent of total contracted wind and solar, respectively.
Of that 77 plus gigawatts of wind and solar power that has been contracted, 36 gigawatts or 47 percent is currently operating, meaning more than half still is still in development. The time it takes to go from a company buying wind or solar power and the project being online depends, but most of the procured projects are expected to come online in the next three years, a spokesperson for American Clean Power told CNBC.
Companies represent a significant piece of the total wind and solar landscape: 16 percent of wind and solar energy was headed towards corporations by the end of 2022. The remaining 84 percent goes to other energy purchasers, like utility companies.
As companies increase their purchasing of wind and solar power, Texas is benefitting more than any other state. Companies have bought clean energy from 540 projects located in 49 states, Washington DC and Puerto Rico, but 35% of contracted capacity bought by companies is coming from Texas, the report finds.
The Public Service Company of New Mexico is asking for project proposals, including renewables and battery storage, designed to help reach its coal-free goal by 2031.
Public Service Company of New Mexico
It’s an ambitious, audacious goal.
In its 20-year 2017 Integrated Resource Plan submitted to the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission (NMPRC)earlier this year, Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM) announced its intentions to be coal-free by 2031. Now it’s taken the first steps toward reaching those goals.
Last week, the state’s largest utility issued a request for proposals (RFP) for 456 MW of new generation resources, including renewable resources and battery storage. The RFP is predicated on the assumption that the utility’s San Juan Generating Station does not continue to operate post 2022.
The inclusion of battery storage in the RFP is part of a new NMPRC mandate that all the state’s utilities include those options in their future plans. The mandate was implemented in August.
In its August decision, the NMPRC said the original 2008 regulation that mandated IRPs didn’t take storage into account because the technology wasn’t sophisticated enough, and what did exist was too expensive. Now the technology is more easily deployable, adding them to the list of requirements makes far more sense – and PNM has taken the commission’s requirements into consideration with its new RFP.
But with new technologies available and prices coming down, the NMPRC decided the time was right to add it to the data requirements included in the reports.
PNM wants proposals that will help its portion of the grid provide the necessary reliability requirements and minimum operating resources that will meet North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) and Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) criteria.
A joint study by Finland’s Lappeenranta University of Technology and Energy Watch Group presented on the sidelines of the COP23 talks in Bonn demonstrates that a global transition to 100% renewable electricity could be achieved by 2050, and would be more cost effective than the current electricity system.
Longi Solar
The study, ‘Global Energy System Based on 100% Renewable Energy – Power Sector’ was presented during the Global Renewable Energy Solutions Showcase event, a sideline to the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP23 currently underway in Bonn.
The study’s key overall finding is that a global shift to 100% renewable electricity is feasible with current technology, and would be more cost effective than the current system led by fossil fuels and nuclear generation.
The study found that in a projected scenario for energy demand in 2050, 100% could be met by current renewable technologies, at a global average LCOE of €52/MWh, compared with 2015’s average LCOE of €70.
In EWG’s 2050 scenario, solar PV covers 69% of electricity demand, wind 18%, hydro 8% and bioenergy 2%. The study predicts that wind will briefly overtake solar in the 2020s, before further price drops put solar back in the lead.
Storage is outlined as the key supporting technology for solar, with around 31% of total demand covered by storage technologies. 95% of this is projected to come from short term storage provided by batteries, with power to gas conversion providing seasonal storage.
“There is no reason to invest one more dollar in fossil or nuclear power production,” exclaims EWG President Hans Josef. “All plans for a further expansion of coal, nuclear, gas and oil have to be ceased. More investments need to be channeled in renewable energies and the necessary infrastructure for storage and grids. Everything else will lead to unnecessary costs and increasing global warming.”
The report is based on an original model developed by Lappeenranta University of Technology, which calculates the most cost-effective mix of technologies based on available resources in 145 regions for a full reference year. The full study is published here.
Only time will tell whether this study’s recommendation will translate into reality. As lead author Christian Breyer sums up: “Energy transition is no longer a question of technical feasibility or economic viability, but of political will.”
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (CMC) — The Barbados government says independent power producers interested in supplying electricity to the national grid will be able to apply for licences by early next year. Energy Minister Darcy Boyce said that recommendations on licensing systems for these producers should be in hand by the end of the year and that proposals for pricing of renewable energy would also go before the Fair Trading Commission early next year.
“We can give certainty to investors of what they will earn,” he said, adding that the recommendations on pricing will be made after stakeholder consultations.
Boyce was speaking at a signing ceremony between the Division of Energy and Enermax Limited to facilitate the installation of solar photovoltaic systems at 28 community centres and nine polyclinics.
The project, which will be implemented over the next three months, forms part of the Disaster Risk and Energy Access Management (DREAM) Project funded by the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) with project support from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
Its primary objectives are to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through the use of renewable energy and to strengthen Barbados’ disaster risk response by promoting decentralised photovoltaic electricity generation with battery back-up.
Boyce said that eventually he would like to see all community centres, polyclinics, the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and all schools with renewable energy systems.
He said this would result in a reduction in electricity costs, provide critical battery support when there were outages and ensure that communities and schools were not impacted in carrying out their programmes because of high electricity bills.
Prime Minister Andrew Holness says Jamaica must capitalise on the availability of renewable energy. He explained that the country would be in a far better position if it could convert naturally occurring forces into energy.
“It is possible for Jamaica to go to approximately 50 per cent of its energy needs provided by alternatives,” Holness declared during a tour of BMR Jamaica Wind Limited in Potsdam, St Elizabeth, on Wednesday.
BMR Jamaica Wind Limited is the builder, owner and operator of Jamaica’s largest privately funded renewable energy project. The 36.3MW wind-generating facility has been in operation since July 1, 2016. At a cost of US$89.9 million, this represents a major investment in the parish of St Elizabeth.
LOCAL ENERGY A PREFERENCE
“From a policy perspective, we would much prefer to have more of our energy locally generated, and from that perspective, renewables are very important to us,” said Holness.
He pointed out that there is great potential between the parishes of Manchester and St Elizabeth for an expansion in wind-generating plants and that the significant investment made by BMR Limited is an indication that there can be even greater investment in wind energy in Jamaica.
Meanwhile, the Prime Minister said that the Government is doing an integrated resource plan which will project what are the country’s future needs. In addition, the plan will incorporate how the country can supply those future needs integrating renewables, in particular wind and solar.
PROBLEM WITH SUPPLY
“Of course, the problem with renewables is the intermittency of the supply, and even that can be overcome with battery technology, which has increased and improved, and so I hold a very optimistic view of the future of energy supply in Jamaica. We are now looking at expansion in solar,” added the Prime Minister.
According to Holness, another solar plant will be opened very soon and the Government is also examining waste energy as a solution.
The BMR Jamaica Wind project holds the distinction of being the first project funded in Jamaica by the Overseas Private Investment Company (OPIC). US$62.7 million was provided by OPIC and US$20 million from the International Finance Company (IFC).
The project is the recipient of the OPIC impact award 2016, as well as, the CREF Wind Project of the Year 2017.
