When Blue Mountain Renewables (BMR) began operating its 36-megawatt wind farm in Potsdam, St Elizabeth, a few months ago, the facility became Jamaica’s largest private-sector renewable energy project.

Minister of Science, Energy and Technology Dr Andrew Wheatley, who gave the keynote address at the official opening on August 11, pointed out that the wind farm would help to diversify the country’s energy matrix and ease the dependence on imported fossil fuels.

“The wind farm is expected to reduce greenhouse gases by about 66,000 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year, roughly equivalent to taking 13,000 cars off the road,” he informed.

Wheatley also applauded the relationship and assistance the company has given to the neighbouring schools, Munro College and Hampton High, as well as the treatment of farmers in St Elizabeth who were affected during the construction phase.

Principal of Hampton High Heather Murray said that she could literally see the ‘wind of change’ with the advent of the BMR wind project.

She bemoans the fact that nearly a quarter of her school’s budget is spent on high electricity cost, money that could be spent on building a state-of-the-art science laboratory.

“BMR brings hope and we welcome them wholeheartedly. We are also excited about the efforts to go green and we are doing our part here at Hampton. Earlier this year, we swapped all fluorescent light bulbs for more environmentally friendly LED bulbs,” Murray stated.

She also informed that Hampton had installed about 12 solar panels to integrate renewable energy into their electric supply. The panels, combined with small wind turbines on the campus, now provide about one-fifth of the school’s energy needs, she noted.

 

TO SERVE THOUSANDS

 

The BMR Jamaica Wind project will serve thousands of customers annually. Power will be sold to the Jamaica Public Service (JPS) Company, under a 20-year power-purchase agreement. This electricity is expected to be among the lowest cost sources of power available on the JPS system.

Jamaica currently relies on oil imports to meet 90 per cent of its energy needs. This leaves the country vulnerable to fluctuating oil prices, which can make it difficult to budget and plan effectively.

To ease the dependence, the country has set a target to generate 30 per cent of its energy from local renewable sources such as hydro, wind and solar power by 2030.

President of BMR Bruce Levy said construction of the project was made easier by the cooperation of the Potsdam residents and the appreciation they showed for the work being done in their community.

“We made sure there was significant benefit to the local and wider community, with billions of dollars of direct spending and employment of hundreds of Jamaicans during construction. We say, without any fear of contradiction, that we are committed to community development,” he said.

Levy informed that the wind farm was made possible through a US$62.7 million financing package, including a US$42.7 million loan from the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC); a US$10 million loan from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and a US$10 million loan from the IFC-Canada Climate Change Programme. BMR Energy provided an equity investment of US$26.9 million.

Gleaner

The United Nations (UN) climate change secretariat has added its voice to concerns being raised about a proposal made by China’s Jiuquan Iron and Steel Company (JISCO) for the construction of a coal-fired plant in St Elizabeth.

The proposal was announced after JISCO completed a deal to acquire the Alpart alumina factory from Russian company, UC Rusal. The new Chinese owners plan to upgrade the plant with an aluminum smelter that would be powered by a 1,000-megawatt coal-fired plant.

Based on calculations provided by the CoalSwarm Global Plant Tracker, a 1,000 megawatt coal plant would produce 5.6-5.8 million tonnes of CO2 annually, increasing Jamaica’s emissions of CO2 by 79-82 per cent. Greenpeace campaigner Lauri Myllyvirta has said that the construction of the plant would violate the Paris Agreement signed under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Commenting on the possible impact of the proposed coal plant on Jamaica’s UNFCCC standing, Nick Nuttall, UNFCCC spokesperson, pointed out that Jamaica had submitted an ambitious national climate action plan to the UN aimed at achieving a nearly eight per cent emission reduction by 2030. He also argued that the action plan promised commitments of greater investment in greener sources of homegrown energy such as wind and solar power rather than increases in oft-imported fossil fuels.

He argued that economic growth and job creation were not antithetical to environmental protection.

“Many complex choices will be made by governments over the years and decades to come, including with regard to energy sources, but today, there is an ever clearer consensus that overcoming poverty and growing GDP, which are critical for developing countries, can go hand in hand with generating new kinds of high-tech jobs; creating healthier, less polluted societies and a transition to a low carbon economy …,” he said in an email response to The Gleaner.

Prime Minister Andrew Holness has said that the Government is committed to balancing its economic-growth aspirations with its environmental and international commitments.

Comments solicited from Jamaica’s mission to the UN and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were not forthcoming up to press time.

Gleaner

Cheaper coal and gas will do nothing to derail the renewable energy revolution according to BNEF’s New Energy Outlook 2016.

Bloomberg New Energy Finance states 60% of installed capacity will be zero-emission energy sources by 2040 and wind and solar power will take the lion’s share of new power generation capacity added – 64%.

Solar power is forecast to be the cheapest generation technology in most countries by 2030 and account for 3.7TW, or 43%, of new capacity added in 2016-40. This will represent $3 trillion of new investment.

A very important point in the report is that around 2027, new wind and solar will be cheaper than running existing coal and gas generators, particularly where carbon pricing has been implemented. In just over a decade we may see a marked uptick in current fossil fuel generation plants being shuttered. The report says there will be a net closure of 286GW of coal in OECD economies by 2040.

By 2040, BNEF states Australia will have wind and solar penetration of more than 50%.

Another prediction will get electric vehicle supporters excited – BNEF’s modeling suggests EV’s will comprise a quarter of the global car fleet by 2040. This is also good news for the residentialand commercial solar sector as it will accelerate a reduction in battery costs through technology development, economies of scale and enhanced manufacturing know-how.

BNEF sees a very healthy future for small-scale solar power, with it accounting for 10% of global generating capacity by 2040. With regard to home battery systems, Bloomberg expects solar energy storage to be commonly deployed alongside rooftop solar panel systems by 2020.

Behind-the-meter energy storage generally will see a sharp rise from around 400MWh today to nearly 760GWh in 2040.

While the news is upbeat about renewables generally, forecasted additions won’t be enough to rein in carbon emissions to the required degree.

“Some $7.8 trillion will be invested globally in renewables between 2016 and 2040, two thirds of the investment in all power generating capacity, but it would require trillions more to bring world emissions onto a track compatible with the United Nations 2°C climate target,” said Seb Henbest, lead author of the report and head of Europe, Middle East and Africa for BNEF.

BNEF suggests approximately USD $5.3 trillion would need to be invested in zero-carbon power by 2040 to prevent carbon dioxide levels rising above 450 parts per million.

Bloomberg

Screen Shot 2016-03-29 at 13.04.35

PARIS, France (AFP) — Investment in renewable energy hit a record US$286 billion (256 billion euros) in 2015, more than half of which came from developing countries for the first time, according to a UN report released Thursday.

All told, new money put into solar, wind, biofuels and other cleaner energy technologies has exceeded US$2.3 trillion since 2004, when total investment was less than US$50 billion, it said.

“Renewables are becoming ever more central to our low-carbon lifestyles,” said Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN Environment Programme, which co-wrote the report.

“Importantly, for the first time in 2015, renewables investments were higher in developing countries than developed.”

That shift was led by China and India, both of which have invested heavily in clean energy even as their juggernaut economies continue to be mainly powered by carbon-intensive fossil fuels.

Renewables added more to global energy generation capacity in 2015 than all other technologies combined, including nuclear, coal, gas and mega-hydro projects of more than 50 megawatts.

Despite rock-bottom fossil fuel prices, new clean energy capacity — even excluding nuclear—- outstripped new coal and gas by more than 100 per cent, said the report, Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment 2016.

The rapid transition to renewables, especially in developing and emerging economies, is “helped by sharply reduced costs, and by the benefits of local power production over reliance on imported commodities”, said Michael Liebreich, chairman of the advisory board of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, which co-launched the report.

As in previous years, the growth in clean energy in 2015 was dominated by solar photovoltaics and wind, which together added 118 gigawatts in generating capacity, nearly a quarter more than the year before.

Wind contributed 62GW and photovoltaics 56 GW, with more modest inputs coming from biomass, geothermal, solar thermal and ‘waste-to-power’, in which waste products are recycled.

The fact that renewables far exceeded conventional energy for new capacity in 2015 shows that a “structural change is underway”, the report said.

But the ultimate goal of a “carbon neutral” global economy enshrined by the world’s nations at UN climate talks in Paris in December is still a distant prospect.

Excluding major hydro projects, renewables still only account for 16 per cent of the world’s total power capacity, even if that figure has consistently climbed by double digits in recent years.

Plummeting costs

Actual electricity generated is even less — barely 10 per cent.

“Despite the ambitious signals from COP21 and the growing capacity of new, installed renewable energy, there is still a long way to go,” said Udo Steffens, president of the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management.

The Paris Agreement inked at the 195-nation ‘COP21’ talks vowed to cap global warming at below two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), a goal that scientists say will require a wholesale shift away from fossil fuels.

Much of the record-breaking investment in clean energy last year came from China, which spent nearly US$103 billion (92 billion euros), 17 per cent more than in 2014 and 36 per cent of the world total.

India was a distant second, spending US$10.2 billion, followed by South Africa (US$4.5 billion), Mexico (US$4 billion) and Chile (US$3.4 billion).

Morocco, Turkey and Uruguay filled out the list of nations, investing at least US$1 billion.

Overall, developing countries poured 17 times more money into clean energy last year than in 2004.

Jamaica Observer

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SINCE its inception in 2014, the Caribbean Climate Innovation Centre (CCIC) programme has been leading the way in developing a regionally integrated approach to solving the Caribbean’s climate, energy, and resource challenges.

The CCIC programme aims to assist Caribbean island states to adapt to and mitigate the impact of climate change by empowering each territory to create clean technologies and businesses, and strengthening several critical areas.

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Everton Hanson says that the centre is taking an entrepreneurship approach to addressing the issues.

“The purpose of this project is to build an entrepreneurial ecosystem that will foster growth-oriented entrepreneurs and profitable businesses that address climate change mitigation and adaptation,” he explains.

The CCIC, which was established as a Consortium, is jointly managed by two of the Caribbean’s foremost scientific institutions — the Scientific Research Council (SRC), based in Jamaica, and the Caribbean Industrial Research Institute (CARIRI) situated in Trinidad and Tobago.

Both islands have active CCIC programmes and function as the project’s primary ‘country hubs’. These hubs are responsible for administering financing, management, and support service delivery regionally.

Locally, the CCIC project is housed at the offices of the SRC located at Hope Gardens in Kingston.

The programme, which emphasises the need for a unified response to developing climate change solutions, has 12 established country hubs in several other Caribbean Community (Caricom) states: Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Montserrat, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, and Suriname.

The CCIC model was developed in collaboration with local stakeholders and addresses the gaps across five priority areas: solar energy, water management, sustainable agribusiness, resource use and efficiency, and energy efficiency.

The CCIC also offers services that assist entrepreneurs in developing business models for their products and services. Among these are technology commercialisation; market development; mentoring and training; networking, as well as business incubation support, and identifying and developing local, regional and international market opportunities.

A key feature of the programme is that it facilitates the testing and prototyping of proposed innovations, and provides technical support and information on contemporary green technology.

So far the bold initiative has met with success, instituting innovative activities in its goal of supporting companies from the nascent stage to an advanced stage of development. This has been accomplished through the staging of boot camps and accelerator programmes, among other activities.

One of its more notable programmes, the Proof of Concept (PoC) competition held in 2015, invites innovators to present designs and concepts for products which can be transformed into viable businesses.

Over 300 innovators from 13 Caribbean countries applied for grant funding through the competition, with 11 winners selected from the pool of applicants.

The successful participants, who were awarded grants ranging from US$10,000 to $50,000, came from Jamaica, Antigua and Barbuda, St Kitts and Nevis, Dominica, St Lucia, and Belize.

Additionally, the PoC winners benefited from several capacity-building exercises facilitated by CCIC and CARIRI, including mentorship, training and technical assistance in business incubator activities.

The CCIC in Jamaica recently hosted the Caribbean Green Tech Start up Boot Camp, which ran from February 26 to 28. Over 70 innovators and entrepreneurs from across the Caribbean participated in the interactive three-day workshop, which challenged them to refine their concepts, transforming them into viable, sustainable businesses.

Executive Director of the SRC, Dr Cliff Riley, points out that with the project is an important initiative as it directly addresses problems associated with climate change while stimulating economic development.

“It is a project for the entire region to build capacity and to ensure that innovative ideas and products can be translated into viable businesses,” he notes.

The programme was developed under the World Bank’s global partnership development programme, InfoDev, and is being implemented under its Climate Technology Programme.

The Caribbean component of the Climate Innovation Centre (CIC) is one of seven CICs established across the world. Other countries with CICs are Kenya, Ethiopia, South Africa, Vietnam, Morocco, and Ghana.

The CCIP programme is one of three components of the World Bank/InfoDev Entrepreneurship Programme for Innovation in the Caribbean and is funded by the Canadian International Development Agency.

Jamaica Observer

Ten companies submitted bids to build and operate renewable energy plants that run on solar, wind, water or waste, but two are in danger of being disqualified for non-payment of the bid security.

The Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR) received the bids for supply of up to 37 megawatt of renewable power to the grid on Wednesday and will determine the preferred bidders by April.

The bids included a 24.7MW waste-to-energy plant at US$110 million, by Green Waste Energy Inc; a 37MW wind plant at US$61 million by Wigton WindFarm Limited; a 20MW solar plant, at US$33.15 million, by WRB Enterprise Inc and a separate bid to build a 37MW solar plant at US$72.15 million, which contains three options.

Great Valley bid US$50 million to develop a 26.4MW wind farm; Tamarind Energy proposed a 36.3MW at US$76.96 million; and BMR Jamaica bid US$18.27 million for a 9.9MW wind farm to expand the existing wind farm that it is developing in central Jamaica.

The other four bids were a 37MW solar project at US$48.7 million with an alternative option by Eight Rivers Energy Company Limited; a 2MW hydropower project, at US$8.9 million, by Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica; a 37MW solar plant at US$77.14 million by Jamaica Energy Partners; and a 30MW biothermal energy plant, at US$93.8 million by Bio Energy Resources Limited.

“We are happy with the process. It was done in an orderly and professional manner,” said Angella Rainford of Eight Rivers Energy Company following the bid openings held at the OUR.

“The returns are attractive, but it’s also the right fit for the country as it mitigates against the reliance on oil,” said Rainford.

Eight Rivers took no chances and submitted a US$700,000 bid security.

Two of the 10 bidders – Green Waste Energy and Bio Energy Resources – did not put up the required security, OUR legal Chenee Rily disclosed at the bid opening.

The OUR required each bidder to submit security equivalent to one per cent of the project cost.

“The only two bids with firm capacity failed to offer a bid security it’s unfortunate,” said Cecil Gordon, the director of generation at Jamaica Energy Partners, in discussion with the Financial Gleaner at the OUR event. “Waste-to-energy gives a constant output so it’s firm capacity.”

Gordon explained that wind solar and hydro can fluctuate depending on external factors, including weather. He also indicated that waste-to-energy projects are more expensive to operate – “which means a lower return,” he added.

OUR said on Thursday that the decision on whether to disqualify the two waste-to-energy bids would be considered by the bid review committee when it convenes.

Last July, the OUR issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) from local and international interests to supply up to 37MW of electricity generation from renewable energy resources on a build, own and operate basis. Wednesday was the deadline for the receipt of bid documents.

This latest project is to complete an RFP process started in 2012 to identify interested entities to submit proposals for the supply of one or more plants of varying configurations greater than 100kW and up to 115MW of renewable energy. At that time, 78MW was identified from three successful bidders.

The Gleaner

The clean-energy boom is about to be transformed. In a surprise move, U.S. lawmakers agreed to extend tax credits for solar and wind for another five years. This will give an unprecedented boost to the industry and change the course of deployment in the U.S.

The extension will add an extra 20 gigawatts of solar power—more than every panel ever installed in the U.S. prior to 2015, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF). The U.S. was already one of the world’s biggest clean-energy investors. This deal is like adding another America of solar power into the mix.

The wind credit will contribute another 19 gigawatts over five years. Combined, the extensions will spur more than $73 billion of investment and supply enough electricity to power 8 million U.S. homes, according to BNEF.

 “This is massive,” said Ethan Zindler, head of U.S. policy analysis at BNEF. In the short term, the deal will speed up the shift from fossil fuels more than the global climate deal struck this month in Paris and more than Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan that regulates coal plants, Zindler said.
Data Source: Bloomberg New Energy Finance

This is exactly the sort of bridge the industry needed. The costs of installing wind and solar power have dropped precipitously—by more than 90 percent since the original tax credits took effect—but in most places coal and natural gas are still cheaper than unsubsidized renewables. By the time the new tax credit expires, solar and wind will be the cheapest forms of new electricity in many states across the U.S.

The tax credits, valued at about $25 billion over five years, will drive $38 billion of investment in solar and $35 billion in wind through 2021, according to BNEF. The scale of the new projects will help push costs down further and will stimulate new investment that lasts beyond the extension of the credits.

Data Source: Bloomberg New Energy Finance

Few people in the industry expected a five-year extension. Stocks soared. SolarCity, the biggest rooftop installer, surged 34 percent yesterday. SunEdison, the largest renewable-energy developer, climbed 25 percent, and panelmaker SunPower increased 14 percent.

Congress is expected to vote by the end of this week on the tax credits as part of a broader budget deal that also lifts the 40-year-old ban on U.S. oil exports. Oil producers have lobbied for years to lift the ban, but it isn’t likely to significantly affect either consumption of oil or deployment of renewables. Leaders from both parties reached an agreement on the bill late Tuesday.

The 30 percent solar tax credit was set to expire next year and will now extend through 2019 before tapering to 10 percent in 2022. The wind credit had expired at the end of 2014, and the extension will be retroactively applied from the start of 2015 through 2019, declining in value each year.

Wind power has had an especially tumultuous relationship with U.S. lawmakers, who have kept the industry’s credits alive through a disruptive ping-pong game of short-term extensions every year or two. “You open manufacturing plants and then you close them. And then you open them and you close them,” BNEF’s Zindler said. “It’s economically inefficient. This will give them a good five-year line of sight on what the market will look like, and that’s really important.”

Bloomberg

As is the case with most local operations, the National Irrigation Commission (NIC) says energy eats up a large chunk of its operational expenses, with the State-run company spending close to $500 million on electricity in 2014/2015.

This accounted for 40 per cent of its operating costs, and already for this year, the commission’s electricity bill is at 47 per cent of operational costs. “So it is increasing as we bring on additional areas. Once there is a drought, then we have to increase the amount of pumping that is done in each of these districts. In some areas, for some months the electricity cost is greater than the revenue that we generate,” NIC Managing Director Mark Richards explained at yesterday’s

Jamaica Observer Monday Exchange.

The NIC provides irrigation services mainly to the agricultural sector, and to a lesser extent industrial and commercial operations in Yallahs, St Thomas; Rio Cobre and Colbeck in St Catherine; central clarendon; New Forest and Duff House, in Manchester; Braco, Trelawny; Hounslow and Beacon/Little Park, in St Elizabeth; and Seven Rivers in St James

“Our electricity cost is one of the significant challenges that we operate under. We are the second-biggest consumer and payee of the JPS. For the year so far up to October, we are at $330 million. So it’s a challenge [and]we are looking at different energy management strategies and engineering strategies [such as] retrofitting our pumps [and] scheduling of our flows in order to better match the service to deal with the demand,” Director of Technical Services Milton Henry explained.

Henry said the commission faces a peculiar challenge, as while energy prices are trending down, the NIC has to be ramping up its operations to satisfy increasing demand for irrigated water.

“Every system we bring on is contributing to our cost, and we have not been able to pass on those costs to our farmers; so as we partner with them, we are saying let us find some more efficient approaches. We have had quite a bit of success… we have grown our business at a time of major challenges and continue to do so,” Henry said, noting that the NIC’s customer base has doubled from 1,265 in 2006 to 2,349 in 2014.

The NIC has moved to cut down on energy costs by retrofitting 15 of its stations with energy-saving devices. It is also looking to solar and wind energy sources. “So far we did a wind study in Manchester with a view to putting in a five megawatt capacity which would meet a significant portion of our demand. The study has been completed and shows that it is feasible. We are expected to move to the next phase… with some urgency,” he said.

The NIC is also eagerly awaiting the resumption of net billing, which the JPS suspended in May to carry out a review of the two-year pilot programme. The assessment which was conducted by the United States’ National Renewable Energy Laboratory has been completed, but up to last month the energy ministry was not able to tell stakeholders in the solar energy sector exactly when the programme would resume.

Jamaica Observer

St Kitts-Nevis PM makes impassioned plea at climate change conference

PARIS, France (CMC) – St Kitts-Nevis Prime Minister Dr Timothy Harris has called on the international community to “negotiate and agree a legally-binding agreement with ambitious emission reduction targets”.

Addressing the 21st Conference of the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Harris reiterated the seriousness and urgency of the threat posed by climate change and the need for an ambitious agreement to be reached during the two week conference.

“My delegation calls on all parties here to negotiate and agree a legally-binding agreement with ambitious emission reduction targets.  St Kitts and Nevis recommends that all parties subscribe to at least five-year commitment cycles with robust ex-ante review and ex-poste assessment processes.

“We also hope that developed country parties and other parties in a position to do so, would be encouraged to provide support to vulnerable countries, particularly to Small Island Developing States (SIDS).”

He told the conference which is being attended by more than 100 world leaders that his twin island Federation, like other SIDS “has been undergoing many climate related changes; namely sea level rise, extreme weather events, prolonged and severe droughts, and disruption to our reefs, coastlines and agriculture”

Harris said that the dangers of climate change are real and present and that the threat is also existential. He said greenhouse gas emissions from small island states like St Kitts and Nevis are negligible “yet our small island states continue to be adversely and disproportionately affected by the impacts of climate change.

“Nonetheless, as responsible global citizens, we in St Kitts and Nevis are already acting locally to reduce our national carbon footprint even further.  The pursuit of renewable energy solutions is now a critical and integral component of our national sustainable development strategy to transform St. Kitts and Nevis into a fully environmentally sustainable small island state.”

Harris said that hi new administration “is incentivizing behavioural changes through the facilitation of duty free concessions on renewable energy technologies.

“We are building strategic partnerships with countries and the private sector to develop geothermal, solar and wind energy solutions. Currently, we have solar farms operating on both St. Kitts and Nevis and are also exploring the potential geothermal capacity on the islands. These renewables will have a significant impact on our energy consumption patterns and reliance on fossil fuels.”

Jamaica Observer

 

Christopher Serju, Gleaner Writer

The Jamaica Agricultural Society (JAS) yesterday signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with a Canada-based company which will see both parties exploring wind-energy solutions for use by Jamaican farmers.

A team from Seaforth Energy in Nova Scotia, Canada, is now in the island on a scouting mission of JAS properties to determine their suitability for hosting the construction of a network of wind turbines to provide a supply chain of cheap, renewable energy.

The project, Clean Energy for Jamaica Farmers, is part of a long-term strategy aimed at significantly reducing production/manufacturing costs in the process enhancing the competitiveness of Jamaican agricultural goods and services on the global market.

The MOU, intended to fast-track efforts to identify appropriate sites and raise investment funding, was signed at the JAS head office, 65 Church Street, Kingston, yesterday.

Bruce Thompson, of Seaforth Energy, told