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US-based biodiesel producer exploring Jamaica for plant investment

November 6, 2015 Webmaster

HERO BX, one of the largest biodiesel producers in the US, is currently exploring possibilities to develop Jamaica’s first commercialscale biodiesel plant.

The firm’s representatives have been visiting the island since Jampro’s “Jamaica Investment Forum” earlier this year, and have been meeting with various government and private sector stakeholders with serious interest in confirming the project.

The plant would boost Jamaica’s renewable energy programme and would also impact a number of industries, since biodiesel uses feedstock such as waste oils from the hospitality industry and plant feedstock from the agricultural industry.

The investment would also be a significant source of employment and could empower the Government to benefit from the sale of biodiesel produced here on the island, which would operate as the hub of HERO BX’s Caribbean operations.

HERO BX produces 50 million gallons of fuel per year from multiple raw materials and has achieved the highest quality accreditation available. The company is investigating expanding into the Caribbean region, as the growing global renewable energy market is estimated to grow to US$614.92 billion by the end of 2015.

Glen F Garth, executive vice-president of US consulting firm Garth Solutions Inc, and representative of HERO BX, stated that Jamaica has received top billing for the development of the plant due to the country’s strategic location, amongst other factors.

“The location of Jamaica strategically in the Caribbean basin, the access to a quality, educated labour force, the access to all of the benefits that are available due to commitments made by the Jamaican government to encourage foreign direct investment, are all factors.

Those attributes are what first attracted our attention and have further strengthened our interest in establishing a biodiesel hub in Jamaica.” Garth also commended the country’s strong national energy policy and renewable energy sub-policy, saying those components were seen as favourable, and increased the company’s interest in Jamaica.

Minister of Industry, Investment and Commerce Anthony Hylton noted that Jamaica continues to receive more investment interest.

“This robust investment climate and investment in a variety of sectors in the economy is the result of work across Government to improve the business environment, facilitate economic growth and create opportunities for job creation,” Hylton said.

Jampro President Diane Edwards is pleased that the country’s strides to promote its renewable energy strategy have been bearing fruit. She stated that following on the Ministry of Industry, Investment and Commerce’s mandate, the agency has been campaigning for more investments in newer sectors to diversify Jamaica’s economy.

“We are seeing more interest in sectors such as energy and technology as the Government makes moves to improve the business atmosphere and the country’s readiness for investments. Jampro will monitor the progress of this and other projects closely as we try to bring more significant, sustainable investments to Jamaica,” she said.

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

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.

Electricity JPS News

Peferred Bidders Identified For 190-Megawatt Power Plant

October 26, 2015 Webmaster

IT APPEARS that the Electricity Sector Enterprise Team (ESET) has identified a preferred bidder for the supply of gas to a 190-megawatt plant, which the Jamaica Public Service Company (JPS) is to build by the fourth quarter of 2017.

A member of the Portia Simpson Miller-chaired Cabinet said on Friday that the amendments being made to the Office of Utilities Regulations (OUR) Act was part of a move to ensure Jamaica is able to attract significant investment capital.

“Jamaica has found it difficult to attract investment in the baseload capacity over many years,” Mark Golding said in the Senate.

He noted that with Jamaica becoming the first non-North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) country to benefit from the grant of a licence for the export of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the United States, consideration is now being given to establish a gas hub in the country.

“It has given us a strategic advantage in establishing this regional hub, and we have gone through a process of seeking investor interest. We have had significant investor interest for the establishment of the gas terminal to supply gas to the new 190-megawatt plant that JPS will be building and also to possibly provide gas from that terminal to other users in the country and, indeed, in the region. I believe a preferred bidder has been identified,” Golding said.

He lamented the fact that despite many attempts to get LNG to Jamaica, the country has been unable to do so mainly because of uncertainty about regulation of the electricity sector.

Yesterday, Phillip Paulwell, the country’s energy minister, said an announcement is to be made shortly by ESET about the selection of two bidders – one to construct the new generation plant and the other to build the infrastructure and deliver LNG to the facility.

“It is fundamentally part of the diversification that is taking place. The price of electricity has gone down by 30 per cent already, but what we want to achieve is diversification, and we would never get back to the state where when the price of crude oil goes up, we are affected by severely high prices,” Paulwell said.

Meanwhile, Golding said in the Senate that the amended OUR Act will lead to improved investor interest. He argued that it would benefit Jamaica “by ensuring that our baseload capacity can be transformed and that we can get the investments needed”.

According to the Cabinet minister, investment in providing baseload energy requires significant spending, and investors are “not prepared to invest in this market where their pricing is set in a totally arbitrary manner by persons who are not accountable to anyone”.

Undermining Regulator’s Independence

Among the amendments set out in the new OUR bill, which has now been passed by both Houses of Parliament, are for the OUR to use certain factors in determining the rates to be paid to a utility company for the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity. Those factors include observing policy directions of the Cabinet and examining the licence of the utility provider, specifically as it relates to determining the appropriate rate of return for investment.

But opposition senators opposed the amendment, saying it was guaranteeing profit to investors and that it would undermine the independence of the regulator.

“The OUR will no longer be able to call itself independent,” Kamina Johnson Smith said, as she raised concerns about a possible overreach of the executive.

“We will no longer be able to truthfully state, as a fact, that we can boast of having an independent regulator,” she added.

“It is anti-transparency, anti-investor and anti-people of Jamaica,” Johnson Smith charged.

But Golding said she has misunderstood the intent of the bill and said further that getting cheaper energy for Jamaica hinges, in part, on the provisions in the bill. He argued also that Cabinet has a most important role in the process and thus it “cannot totally drop its hands in the face of a dysfunctional regulatory system that is denying the country effective” solutions to lower energy prices.

“We cannot divest, in the name of independence, to unaccountable bureaucrats, the ability to stymie investment through either their own incompetence or whatever may be the problem. We have suffered under that system,” Golding added.

The Gleaner

News

$128-b climate change bill

October 22, 2015 Webmaster

EXTREME weather events associated with climate change have cost the country in excess of $128 billion in damage over the decade between 2002 and 2012.

Minister of Land, Water, Environment and Climate Change Robert Pickersgill made the startling revelation at the launch of the Adaptation Programme and Financing Mechanism at the Four Seasons Hotel in New Kingston recently.

“This covers a range of damage ranging from social dislocation and loss of property and lives, to which a dollar value could not be affixed,” said Pickersgill.

The adaptation programme, which falls under the Pilot Programme for Climate Resilience (PPCR), and which is funded by the InterAmerican Development Bank (IDB) to the tune of US$7.8 million under the global Climate Investment Funds (CIF), will increase the country’s resilience to climate change by enhancing the island’s adaptive capacity across priority sectors.

He said it was common knowledge that Jamaica is among the most vulnerable nations to the impacts of climate change. He noted, however, that with the relevant training, policies and national education, the phenomenon which threatens hotter temperatures, rising sea levels, longer, drier droughts and more extreme weather events, will become less of a challenge. The goal, Pickersgill said, is a Jamiaca that is climate change resilient and focused on its sustainability.

“We envision a future that is climate resilient; one where economic development and environmental sustainability are parallel outcomes, and one in which every Jamaican man, woman and child can enjoy the benefits of this,” the minister said.

“What the PPCR will provide, therefore, is an opportunity to build our capacity, and to look beyond weather and hydrological information to a focus on climate information for decision-making,” he continued.

The technical co-operation project valued at over US$19 million will include the mainstreaming of climate change adaptation in local sectorial and national plans.

IDB Country Reperesentative Therese Turner-Jones said Jamaica could access up to US$10 million as the facility allows for a concessional loan-financing window.

“The three-component programme will include mainstreaming climate change into development planning, supporting climate change resiliency efforts in the upper Rio Minho watershed area, and implementing innovative climate financing, particularly in the agribusiness and tourism sectors across island for SMES [small and medium-sized enterprises]. The lessons learned from these adaptation interventions will be disseminated throughout the island,” Turner-Jones said at the launch.

The Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ), which is the national implementing organisation, reiterated the government’s pleasure that the island was selected among six Caribbean regional PPCR and pilot countries.

Deputy Director General Claire Bernard said the pilot programme could fulfil outcome 14 of Vision 2030, which speaks to effecting strategic objectives to addressing issues of climate change, adaptation and disaster risk production.

In terms of integrating climate change as a subject and policy objective across all ministries of government, minister Pickersgill pointed out that training for policy-makers and climate change focal points across all ministries has already begun.

Jamaica Observer

News

Countdown To COP 21: Caribbean Under Threat From New Climate Regime

October 9, 2015 Webmaster

With the emergence of what he calls ‘a new climate regime’, physicist Dr Michael Taylor has painted a picture of a Jamaica and Caribbean region that supports the case for an ambitious deal at the international climate talks set for Paris in December.

“The number of warm days everywhere in the Caribbean is increasing. Over the last 50 years, we have been steadily having more warm days. And we are having more warm nights. This is the kind of new regime we are entering into,” he told a workshop on the Third National Communication and Biennial Update Report to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), held at the Mona Visitors’ Lodge last Tuesday.

Taylor noted that what was also indicative of the new regime and would become entrenched is rainfall variability and a drying trend resulting in a reduction of seven to eight per cent in the length of the rainy season and an increase of six to eight per cent in the length of the dry season.

“When we look at the future climate for Jamaica, temperatures keep going up and, from the best case scenario to the worst case scenario, the present research suggests it’s between one and 3.6 degrees Celsius by end of century. Thirty to 98 per cent of days annually will be considered ‘hot’ by the 2090s and only two per cent ‘cool’ by the 2080s,” revealed Taylor, the head of the Climate Studies Group Mona.

At the same time, he said there would be even higher sea levels, alluding to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fourth Assessment Report (2007), which projects an increase of up to 59 centimetres by 2100.

Key Things To Know

The situation, the physicist said, is one where there are three key things to know – the first is that “our sensitivity is being exposed”.

At the same time, Taylor added, “our vulnerability is being expanded” with the “vulnerability of sectors and areas of Caribbean life, which were veiled because of their secondary linkages also emerging and at a faster pace. New vulnerable groupings are also emerging as a result of an expanded exposure to the climate threat”.

Those vulnerable groupings include flora and fauna, outdoor workers, asthma sufferers, the elderly and the young, as well as those physically challenged, in addition to cultural assets and small-business owners.

“And that will continue,” he predicted.

Ultimately, Taylor said, “our viability is being endangered” and one needs look no further than the impact of the hurricane events of the last decade”.

In 2004, for example, Hurricane Ivan cost some eight per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) while Hurricane Dean cost the island some 3.5 per cent of GDP in 2007.

“You can’t have an impact of eight per cent in GDP and a recurring impact on your economy, and your capacity to continue developing as a nation not be impacted,” Taylor cautioned.

The situation is one, he said, that warrants “urgent, decisive, inclusive and considerate” action at the national level.

The island’s climate negotiators to the United Nations are intent on such action at the international level, as efforts to eke out a favourable deal in Paris get into high gear.

Among other things, Jamaica has joined the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) in calling for a limit on global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and not the two degrees currently on the table.

Steep Emission Cuts

This negotiating position is one that would require steep greenhouse gas-emission cuts from developed as well as fast-developing countries. But Jamaica and AOSIS negotiators say this is critical for the “survival of small island states”, according to a document circulated by the Climate Change Division (CCD), at a recent journalist workshop hosted by Friedrich Ebert Stiftung.

Jamaica also wants universal participation in the climate deal, “along with robust means of ensuring transparency of action and support”.

It wants, too, to ensure that a framework exists to deal with loss and damage.

“There are limits to the impacts that we can adapt to, so loss and damage must be included as a central element of the 2015 agreement – one that is distinct and separate from climate change as it represents irreversible and permanent damage”, the document noted.

The Gleaner

Alternative Energy Government News

IDB Funds Major Climate Change Project

September 25, 2015 Webmaster

Jamaica is to benefit from a US$20-million pilot climate-change adaptation programme to be funded mainly by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), which will be implemented by the Ministry of Land, Water, Environment and Climate Change, working with selected, allied state agencies and non-government organisations.

The overall objective is to increase Jamaica’s resilience to climate change, by enhancing the country’s adaptive capacity across the priority sectors of water, health, tourism, coastal resources and human settlement. It will be financed by a loan of US$10 million, at interest rate of 0.025 per cent per annum, and a grant of US$7.89 million from the Climate Investment Fund through the IDB, with counterpart financing of US$1.97 million from the Jamaican Government.

Increasing Awareness

Therese Turner-Jones, the IDB’s country representative for Jamaica, used yesterday’s official launch to emphasise the need for getting everyone up to speed about the harsh reality of climate change and the need for such interventions.

“Increasing the awareness of citizens – every child, every young person in Jamaica about how serious this is because I don’t think the problem is going away,” she told the audience at the Hotel Four Seasons in St Andrew.

“It’s really important that everybody understands that this is a problem that’s going to be with the world for a very long time. So the earlier we can educate our children about it, climate change and also the negative impacts and what we can do as a country, things will be better off years from now.”

Turner-Jones explained that the IDB does many pilot projects in Jamaica, which are then replicated in the region, and with its next five-year country plan for Jamaica now in the making, climate change will be a crosscutting theme in many of the development projects regarding water, sanitation and agriculture.

Meanwhile, Claire Bernard, deputy director, sustainable development, at the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) appealed to stakeholders to treat the project with the urgency and priority it deserves.

“I share the experience of working with a number of agencies which seem to treat funded projects as an appendage whose needs are addressed when there is a slack in the normal work. The result of this is that projects are perennially underspending and behind schedule. The intended benefits are delayed or compromised, effectiveness is impaired, cost increases, and there are implications for the national budget.”

The senior PIOJ executive went on to stress the importance of getting the project implemented on time and within the original budget.

“Being a pilot beneficiary in this facility puts Jamaica under the microscope with respect to our performance and consistency …, the extent to which we scale up good practices, the innovativeness of our activities and capacity for others to learn from them but most importantly, the sustainability of the intervention.”

The Gleaner

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