World Bank estimates Caribbean geothermal potential at 850 MW
Residential area in Guadeloupe (source: flickr/ Radio Nederland Wereldomroep, creative commons)
Francisco Rojas
9 Sep 2014
The World Bank proposes to develop geothermal investments in the Eastern Caribbean with the creation of alliances between the public and private sector and help them abandon oil.
It is a common issue for many Caribbean islands to have high prices for oil. This is inherently bad for their economies, but when most of the countries depend on said oil to generate their electricity, this is an even more problematic issue, since higher electricity costs creates a significant burden to competitiveness.
In a recent post from the World Bank, they explore this issue and suggest that the solution can be found in geothermal power.
According to the same source, “seven Eastern Caribbean countries have a huge potential for geothermal energy generation, which could be confirmed by more detailed exploration, according to a study by the World Bank. For example, on the island of Guadeloupe, for example, the La Bouillante power station is already generating 15MW by means of geothermal energy.”
Most of this region is still uncharted for geothermal exploration but “commercial potential could reach a combined total of 850MW” as stated the the World Bank. This is very good for the region, considering that the average per capita use of electricity is not as high as other areas.
“On average, each Latin American used 2045.5 kwh of electricity in 2010 according to the World Bank, almost 4 times more than in Sub-Saharan Africa but a mere fraction (15%) of the per capita consumption in the United States. Geothermal energy is already proving to be a viable alternative in countries like Mexico and Nicaragua, where they are already taking advantage of the steam which surges from beneath the Earth’s crust to generate electricity, with the support of the World Bank.”
The key point now is develop the potential in these regions to give them a boost in their competitivity and also cut down on current and future greenhouse gas emissions. One of the solutions that the World Bank report proposes to take these big investments to the next level is the creation of alliances between the public and private sector in the Eastern Caribbean along with more studies to determine how much investment is needed to successfully develop this technology.
To read the full article, please follow the link bellow:
Source: The World Bank Website
