Group identifies six potential sites for geothermal development in Jamaica

Beach Resort at Montego Bay, Jamaica (source: flickr/ mcclouds, creative commons)

Alexander Richter 18 Sep 2013

A group looking at potentially developing geothermal power plants in Jamaica, has now narrowed down a list of potential sites to six from originally 12 sites seen holding the potential for geothermal power development.

According to local news, “Geologist Krishna Vaswani and partners in the project announced in January, aim to produce electricity from heat trapped underground, for the first time in Jamaica.

Construction of the 15mw geothermal plant has a “likely” start date of 2016, but the final timeline will be determined by the research, the geologist said. Work on the plant should start in a year and a half after the research is concluded, he indicated.

“We’ve done quite a bit of feasibility studies,” said Vaswani, but he declined to name the six sites.

In an exploration guide created by the Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica, the 12 springs listed as having geothermal potential are: Guava River Spring, Bath Spring, Mt Felix Spring and Garbrand Hall Spring – all in St Thomas; Rockfort Spring in Kingston; Ferry Hill Spring in St Catherine; Salt River Spring and Milk River Spring in Clarendon; Black River Spring in St Elizabeth; Windsor Spring and Yankee River Spring in St Ann; and Buxton Spring in Westmoreland.

“Jamaica is not an active tectonic area – but it does have faults running through the country,” Vaswani said.

Vaswani indicated in January that the project may cost US$15 million and that he and his partners aimed to raise US$4 million in equity for the 15-megawatt project.

[That number, and ThinkGeoEnergy reported on this previously, seems to be way too low for the planned development.]

He declined to name the company through which the project is being executed, nor would he disclose name of his partners, saying they want their involvement to remain confidential at this time.

With an approximate cost of US$2 million per megawatt of geothermal energy “is a very, very costly form of energy in terms of development”, he said. [comment: and this probably leaves out drilling cost]

“We are going slowly and cautiously, but looking at doing something in the next two years. We have to crawl before we can run.”

Other islands in the Caribbean have more geothermal energy because their volcanoes are active, with St Lucia for example, having “hot water bubbling out of the ground,” Vaswani said. Other active areas include Indonesia, Chile and Trinidad & Tobago.

When Vaswani pitched the Jamaican project earlier this year, it was reported that the team then estimated Jamaica’s geothermal energy capacity at 100mw. Vaswani now says the estimates could fluctuate.”

Source: Jamaica Gleaner