Energy Minister Dr. Vince Henderson has announced that the government has made great progress and is at a stage where it is ready to build the geothermal power plant for Dominica. He was speaking during the ‘Focus on Government and Development’ program on DBS Radio on Friday.
According to him, wells have been drilled in Laudat where the geothermal plant is located and it has proven that Dominica has Geothermal resource potential, enough to transmit and distribute throughout Dominica.
Government has made investments so far of close to US$50 million, half of which are grants that it has been able to attract from friends, donors, institutions as well as bilateral partners.
“Having done that we have gotten to the stage where we are ready to actually build the power plant and to get the power to DOMLEC through a transmission system which will take us from the Roseau Valley all the way to Fond Cole,” Dr. Henderson explained. “We have made great progress and we are very excited about where we are now, because we are at the stage where we are ready to actually start work on the power plant.”
Furthermore, he said the government did not choose geothermal because it was easy, geothermal was chosen because of the potential to transform Dominica.
“We have the potential and some islands don’t. So, we have the potential and we see how it can help to transform Dominica’s energy landscape, but also we can change things around,” he stated. “Because one of the highest costs of operations is energy/electricity.”
Additionally, Dr. Henderson pointed out that it is one of the most resilient forms of renewable energy.
“Solar and wind are good, they have their place, but there are also some serious challenges that geothermal doesn’t have,” he noted. “Because, once you go, you drill, you build a proper housing or a proper facility for that plant, you don’t have to worry about hurricanes. It’s not like panels that can be blown away or broken if some flying object knocks it up…”
Furthermore, he mentioned that geothermal energy goes 24/7. “It just keeps on going,” Dr. Henderson indicated. “It doesn’t stop as long as you maintain it properly.”
Government has signed an agreement with Ormat Technologies Inc of Nevada USA recently to ensure they can get a cost of generation, meaning that Ormat will sell power to DOMLEC at a rate that is much lower than what it currently costs to generate electricity with diesel generators.
The company provides 80 percent of the equipment for geothermal power generation in the world using binary technology.
“In terms of diesel it will knock off the fuel surcharge so we won’t be paying fuel surcharge..,” Dr. Henderson revealed. “We will be producing 10 kilowatts of power, so in other words you will knock off diesel generators that will give you that amount of power.”
This he said will reduce the fuel surcharge significantly.
Government has been working on the geothermal project for the past 20 years.
In October last year while speaking at the opening ceremony of a two-day ‘Geothermal Global Partners Conference’, Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit stated that a total of over EC$150 million had so far been invested in Dominica’s geothermal project.
“Over US$55 million or EC [Eastern Caribbean] 150 million dollars have been invested thus far in this project,” he said, adding that most of the investment was in infrastructure and that “45 percent [about US25 million] of this cost has been shouldered by the government of Dominica, but significantly 55 percent of this funding has come in the form of infrastructure grants and technical assistance from partners.”
