THE country cannot continue to depend on oil if the island intends to make meaningful progress with its economy, a leading energy engineer has said.
Certified energy manager and energy auditor, Owen Gunning, who is also president of the Jamaica Society of Energy Engineers, wants a full-scale effort to be made to reduce Jamaica‘s dependence on oil as its base fuel and insists that a ‘more action, less talk’ approach should be adopted.
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Observer Monday Exchange guests (from left) Alando Terrelonge, partner at Bailey Terrelonge Allen; Edison Galbraith, general manager, loan origination, Development Bank of Jamaica (DBJ); Christopher Brown, energy project co-ordinator, DBJ; and Owen Gunning, certified energy manager, certified energy auditor and president of the Jamaica Society of Energy Engineers, continue the discussion on energy efficiency following the end of the Exchange yesterday at the newspaper
THE Jamaica Public Service (JPS) has reiterated that Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) is the preferred option as Jamaica explores alternatives to electricity generation fuelled by oil. Valentine Fagan, the managing director of South Jamaica Power Company, made the pronouncement while addressing the weekly Jamaica Observer Monday Exchange. That company was set up by the JPS to preside over the construction of a 360-megawatt plant in Old Harbour, St Catherine. According to JPS, that facility, which is slated to come on stream in December 2014, will replace the inefficient and aged Old Harbour power-generating plant. “There is really not much difference in terms of coal versus LNG, just that it is possible to bring on the LNG plant much faster. Coal plants take five years for construction, in addition to the many environmental issues,” said Fagan as he addressed reporters and editors at the Observer’s Beechwood Avenue headquarters. “If we don’t add capacity, and if we assume modest growth in the economy, we would have breached the 25 per cent reserve margin, and would find it difficult to supply peak demand. This would result in widespread outages,” Fagan added. For several months, some stakeholders in the energy sector have been questioning moves by the JPS and the Government to introduce LNG. Some of the observers have suggested that coal would be a less-expensive option. Others have suggested that LNG prices will begin to skyrocket, and have also indicated that Jamaica |