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St. Lucia to intensify renewable energy development efforts

St. Lucia to intensify renewable energy development efforts View over Soufriere, St. Lucia, Caribbean (source: flickr/ donnierayjones, creative commons)
Alexander Richter 17 Feb 2014

Caribbean island state of St. Lucia is looking to intensify its renewable energy development through a more ambitious target of 35 percent of renewables by 2020, instead of previously targeted 20 percent.

The Caribbean island states are all looking to decrease the energy costs for its population and businesses. Depending mostly on oil many look at renewable energy as their solution to become more energy independent and particularly cut costs for energy.

So these island states are looking at wind, solar, biomass, but also at geothermal energy as a solution. Particularly geothermal is of great interest for those islands with the potential due to the fact that it can provide base-load power.

Following a recent renewable energy conference on the British Virgin Islands, the Prime Minister of St.. Lucia has asked its energy minister to “increase the island’s target for green energy production, from an initial target of 20 percent to now 35 percent by 2020.

“St Lucia and other countries are looking to match the progress made by Aruba, which has targeted 100 percent green energy production by the same year, and is already 50 percent of the way there.

Earlier this month, St Lucia had announced its efforts on geothermal energy, similar to those of Montserrat and Dominica.

The government of St. Lucia now says it will “intensify” discussions with private investors and developers in both the wind and geothermal sectors toward that end.”

Source: Caribbean Journal