LatinFinance - July/August 2016 - 30

ergy bill in the country where 100% of the
power comes from imported diesel. Peak
electricity demand on Antigua & Barbuda
is below 50MW.
St. Kitts & Nevis also has a solar farm at
its international airport and in March inaugurated the first small solar plant, 500kW,
built with technical cooperation from the
Taiwanese government.

the CDB.
However, just because an island is volcanic in formation does not mean geothermal
is the answer, says Emera's Williams.
"Where geothermal is available, I would
say that it has a lot of merit, because, unlike
wind and solar, it is dependable, long-term
power," he says. "But we do have examples
in the Caribbean where there is good geothermal resource but electricity demand
is not there to justify an investment. Caribbean islands are by and large islands with
small electricity demand."
Solar and wind
The unpredictability of other major options, solar and wind power, hinder their
development as a complete replacement
for fossil fuels.
While costs have come down and
technology has made these two options
more viable, solar and wind power are still
intermittent sources. Neither can form the
foundation of a grid, because they are not
available 24 hours a day at a constant level.
Further, solar and wind technologies
are "still expensive and prohibitive for
many countries today," says Gischler. "The
breakthrough will come with storage batteries. The idea would be to have a high
performance batteries to accumulate all
the power generated by sun or wind and
dispatch as needed. That would change
everything."
The best options right now are on the
large islands that have peak demand over
100MW.
Emera Caribbean is considering building
a wind farm on Barbados, where it operates
Barbados Power and Light. It recently commissioned a 10MW solar plant that could
be ready in 2017. Peak electricity demand
in Barbados is 155MW, making it one of the
larger consumers in the eastern Caribbean.
In Dominica, where Emera has a 52% stake
in Dominica Electricity Services Limited,
peak demand is 17MW.
As part of its push to renewables, Emera
started a program four years ago that allows
commercial and residential customers to
install solar panels that can also feed power
back to the grid. It now has around 12MW
of distributed customer-owned solar in the
grid.
Other islands are installing small solar
plant for specific use, such as the 3MW
plant at Antigua and Barbuda's airport
opened earlier this year. The 12,000 photovoltaic panels will provide enough energy
to power the airport. It will help cut the en-

30 L ATINFINA NCE.COM - July/August 2016

PETER WILLIAMS
EMERA CARIBBEAN

"WE ARE ON A
LEARNING CURVE,
AND IT IS A PRETTY
STEEP LEARNING
CURVE, TO TRANSITION
TO A DIFFERENT WAY
OF OPERATING THAT
WILL CHALLENGE
GOVERNMENTS,
UTILITY OPERATORS
AND INVESTORS"

Retrofitting for the future
The private and public sector is also focused on modifying the energy matrix
by retrofitting buildings, applying energy
saving technology and looking at options
to increase electric vehicles.
One of the most exciting projects today,
Gischler says, is the use of performancebased contracts for retrofitting buildings.
"It will become a new frontier in energy
efficiency."
Because many of the Caribbean islands
are heavily indebted, the project is using
"reflows" from energy saved in buildings
that have been refitted to fund others in an
ongoing cycle. "When you have 80 buildings but only have money to do 10, you can
multiply what you are doing by reinvesting
savings in other buildings," he says.
A large number of island nations have
also tapped into climate fund initiatives
administered through the CDB for energy
savings. The bank recently approved a $9
million project for Saint Lucia to change
traditional street lighting for new energy
saving lights. The change could halve the
state's electricity bill for public lighting,
says Williams-Robertson.
"It is such an obvious investment to
undertake," she says. "Not only does it
reduce consumption and greenhouse gas
emission, but it also lowers fiscal deficits
because governments pay less for street
light."
A trend gaining more attention is the
move toward electric vehicles. A pending decision in Norway to require all new
vehicles sold as of 2025 to be electric could
be the spark needed to get Caribbean
islands to follow suit.
"When you look at the Caribbean,
which is dependent on fossil fuel not just
for electricity but significantly transport,
we have short driving distances and
easy terrain," says Emera Caribbean's
Williams. "I think focusing on electric
vehicles is a natural add-on to the whole
issue of transitioning to renewables and
reducing the dependence on imported
fuels," he says. LF
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