Jamaica: Gov’t wants to
privatise Wind–farm
Radio Jamaica
KINGSTON
Petroleumworldtt.com
01 07 07
Wigton
Windfarm in Manchester is to be priva–tised
in the New Year as part of Government plans to increase
the use of renewable energy and re–duce the
national oil import bill which this year passed
the US$1.5 billion (J$100 billion) mark for the
first time.
Ruth
Potopsingh, group managing director of the Petroleum
Corporation of Jamaica (PCJ) – the state agency
that owns Wigton, told The Gleaner that since it
opened in 2004 there has been interest from several
potential buyers, both local and international.
The sale is to be publicly advertised.
"It’s
the policy of PCJ to build and develop projects
and then to turn them over to the private sector,"
Mrs. Potopsingh said.
Government’s
plan to increase the proportion of renewable energy
for elec–tricity generation, from five per
cent to 15 per cent by 2015, will cost approxi–mately
US$200 million (about J$1.4 billion).
According
to Dr. Cezley Sampson, energy adviser to the Prime
Minister, this necessitates private sector investment.
Parties
interested in buying the wind farm will have to
continue with PCJ’s plans to double the generating
capacity of Wig–ton from 20.7 to 41.4 megawatts,
Phillip Paul–well, the government min–ister
with responsibility for energy, told The Gleaner.
"Sale
to any buyer must be on condition that they are
prepared to go ahead with the expansion," Mr.
Paulwell said.
Under
a power purchase agreement with the Ja–maica
Public Service Com–pany Ltd., Wigton cur–rently
supplies the national grid with electricity gener–ated
by its 23 wind tur–bines at an average output
of seven megawatts.
Wigton
is the first com–mercial wind farm in the
Caribbean and the second project in the Caribbean
to qualify for carbon credits under the United Nations
Kyoto Protocol Clean De–velopment Mechanism.
Wigton will earn US$3.1 million (J$205 million)
over nine years from selling carbon credits to the
Dutch government.
However,
Mrs. Po–topsingh’s predecessor, Dr.
Raymond Wright, has said that when approved, the
Wigton expansion would likely be delayed by world
overdemand for wind tur–bines which has been
partly caused by incentives for renewable energy
of–fered by governments in the developed world,
espe–cially Europe.
PCJ
is currently sourc–ing funds to construct
a 1.2 megawatt hydro power plant at Laughlands,
Great River, in St. Ann. It has identified three
other po–tential sites islandwide: Rams Horn
and Constant Spring in St. Andrew, and Rio Cobre
in St. Catherine.
In
the meantime, ac–cording to Mr. Paulwell,
the results of Petrojam’s current trial of
E10, which would replace MTBE with ethanol as 10
per cent of the gasolene mixtures in the island,
are to be brought to Cabinet in January. He said
an is–landwide switch to the fuel made from
sugar cane is expected later in 2007.
The
Energy Minister said a new trial, using fuel with
15 per cent ethanol, would also begin next year.
"This
is good for the en–vironment, it is good in
terms of foreign exchange savings that would other–wise
be spent on imports and it would also enable the
local sugar industry to have a role in the product,"
he said.
PCJ
will also continue discussions in the New Year with
several local en–tities interested in partner–ing
with foreign manufac–turers of photovoltaic
(solar energy) equipment, to es–tablish a
factory in Ja–maica.
Radio
Jamaica
Tuesday 26th December
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