Saint Kitts and Nevis or how two islands compete on geothermal
St. Kitts, view to Nevis (source: flickr/ Sonya Bobb, creative commons)
Alexander Richter
5 Oct 2015
Recent announcement of geothermal exploration plans in Saint Kitts in the Caribbean, are seen critical by authorities on neighbouring island of Nevis, as they believe to have the better resource and development should happen on their island.
The recent announcement by Saint Kitts in the Caribbean on its plans for geothermal exploration and potential power project has raised a few questions not only on the island and neighbouring Nevis, but also by onlookers like ThinkGeoEnergy.
So maybe first a little bit of background. The Federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis are a two-island country in the West Indies in the center of the long stretch of Caribbean islands. Below a map of the region, further to the South-East lies Montserrat, then Guadeloupe and Martinique and Saint Lucia. All of those islands are also looking at the development of geothermal power development. The only geothermal power plant in the Caribbean is currently the 15 MW La Bouillante plant on the French territory of Guadeloupe.
In area and population, Saint Kitts and Nevis are the smallest sovereign state in the Americas. It belongs to the British Commonwealth with the British Queen as head of state. The capital of the Federation is Basseterre on the larger island of Saint Kitts. The distance between the two islands is about 3 km (2 miles).
The announcement of an agreement for exploration on Saint Kitts, seems to cause some kind of surprise on behalf of the authorities in Nevis, who describe their experience in their efforts to develop a geothermal project as providing a better basis. There is also a belief for resources to be better on Nevis and the possibility of connecting both islands with a cable, was even considered back when the initial developer West Indies Power was developing the project.
Nevis Minister of Energy Alexis Jeffers said in a recent interview that discussions on a power purchase agreement with the group that took over the Nevis project is just about to be signed. ThinkGeoEnergy has tried for some time to get some confirmation on the status of the project by its development group, but no clear answer was received so far.
So while Nevis seems to believe that the Saint Kitts project is not feasible, the counter-party in Saint Kitts sees a viability for both islands to develop geothermal projects and even a way to cooperate on geothermal development.
I somehow sense that this is not over yet. But maybe a competitive situation like this will make things happen quicker. We will definitely report on the further development of the project and try to learn from the parties involved about what is going to happen next.
