Caribbean Climate Change & Energy Access conference

Alexander Richter 17 Mar 2009

At a recent conference of 19 legislators from The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Domoinica, The Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Lucia, Trinidad & Tobago, as well as Guyana, participants were “enthused at Nevisian project where geothermal energy will be exported to sister island, St. Kitts”, so locally reported.

The conference was organized by Denmark-based e-Parliament, an organization “aimed at spreading productive policy ideas among democratic parliamentarians and helping to build broad coalitions to implement those ideas.”

Legislators also agreed that the trade in energy should be promoted in clusters and in this regard they were interested in a geothermal project on the isle of Nevis. The first phase of the project entails a 40 MW power station which will be operable in 2010 and which will export power to St Kitts in 2011.

“In the second phase, capacity will be doubled in 2014 to 80 MW so that power can be transmitted using high voltage direct current lines to other islands: initially the Virgin Islands but there has also been interest from The Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Jamaica. The legislators hoped that other groups of islands could develop a similar trade in energy”, the communiqué noted.”

Participants agreed for Caribbean countries to create feed-in tariffs where appropriate.

“Feed-in tariffs impose a legal obligation on utilities and energy companies to purchase electricity from renewable energy producers at a favourable price per unit, and this price is usually guaranteed over a certain time period (usually about 20 years)”, the communiqué said.

The need for a unified policy on climate funding measures such as the Clean Development Mechanism and Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation was also agreed. This united voice would help to ensure that smaller countries got their fair share of funding, the communiqué noted.”

Source: Stabroek News