Barbados is accelerating the transition to a cleaner, reliable and sustainable energy system, aiming to achieve 70 per cent renewable energy penetration by 2029.
Minister of Energy, Business Development and Commerce Kerrie Symmonds said yesterday that this push has been reinforced by the impact of several global factors on the costs of fossil fuels.
“The current geopolitical and economic environment has reinforced the urgency of this objective. As a country that imports virtually all of its fossil fuels, we simply cannot control developments in the international markets but we must take the deliberate steps available to us to reduce our vulnerability to their consequences,” he said.
Symmonds made his remarks as part of a national report on the state of the energy sector, which was held at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre, in Two Mile Hill, St Michael.
Proactive implementation of the renewable energy acceleration goal drew on the results of six consultation sessions which led to a draft of an updated energy policy. This was followed by the creation of four committees to oversee various aspects of the execution.
Challenges
“We recognised up front that with the best wishes in the world, we are not going to be able to meet the ambitions of the Government with respect to placing renewable energy on the national grid, unless we were able to look specifically at some of the technical, regulatory, financial and institutional challenges which the country has been facing,” Symmonds said.
“We have identified the amount of renewable energy that this country ideally should be able to have on grid by the year 2029. And we believe that if we can get to 50 per cent of that by December 2027 . . . while looking towards 70 per cent by 2029,” Symmonds said.
Eight immediate strategic priorities were identified from the consultation, chief among these were the procurement of battery energy storage needed to unlock up to 150 megawatts of battery energy storage capacity, expanding the resilience of the electricity grid and modernising the regulatory and tariff-setting network.
Additionally, as Barbados moves towards its national target of 50 per cent renewable energy by December 2027, Government is taking further steps to ensure that the electricity grid has the storage capacity necessary to safely accommodate increased renewable generation.
Battery energy storage
“Technical assessments have been taking place and they indicate that approximately 125 megawatts of battery energy storage capacity will be required to support the 2027 target – 125 megawatts of energy storage capacity,” the minister said.
“With the 16 megawatts currently being procured through a competitive procurement process, Government is now advancing a further 65 megawatts of battery energy storage capacity.
“We have had a procurement process which has been completed and that procurement has now gone to the point where we expect that the [batteries], 60 megawatts of them, should be in the country and installed by, let us say – and I’m being now very, very generous – the middle of next year.”
A further 65 megawatts of battery energy storage capacity is now being considered. This additional 65 megawatts will comprise 15 megawatts at the transmission level. That is at the transmission level and that will be one single project. The additional 50 megawatts will be at the distribution level and they will be through multiple projects spread across the island, Symmonds added.
The minister noted that in the light of global disruptions from the Ukraine war and the Iran-United States war, Government has used price hedging to protect consumers from some of the hikes in prices, with the price of oil barrels hedged at $93 per barrel. He added that consumer protection remains at the forefront of the multiple measures outlined.
“The Government now also has to ensure that the transition does not result in unsustainable costs being transferred to consumers. The core concern for me is that this transition process must bear fruit in the pockets of our consumers,” Symmonds said.
“We have to be able to ensure that we give the country the energy security it needs and, at the same time, that we unlock investment and facilitate investment, but, equally, that as we do those two things that we ensure continued affordability for the consumers.” ( JRN)