St Vincent and the Grenadines government will on Monday 6th May 2019, will hold a ceremony to officially launch the start of drilling at the island’s first Geothermal project.
The project launch will take place at Bamboo Range located at the foothills of the La Soufriere volcano at 3 pm.
The Geothermal project aims to deliver a 10MW power plant transforming its energy sector, reducing its dependency on imported diesel, and providing a new sustainable and affordable source of energy based on an indigenous resource.
Once operational, the plant will supply substantially all of the country’s baseload power and bring renewable energy sources to ~73% of total power generation, well in excess of SVG’s Energy Action Plan target of 60% by 2020.
The project is being supported by several international organizations. The Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) is the lead financier, and is also coordinating funding from the international development community in the form of grants, contingent recoverable grants (CRG) and concessional loans.
The Inter- American Development Bank, using resources from the Clean Technology Fund and the Global Environmental Facility has provided a CRG to mitigate risks associated with the drilling phase of the Project.
The United Kingdom Department for International Development and the European Union Caribbean Investment Facility are also lead contributors to the project.
Other major sponsors include ADFD via IRENA, and the Governments of New Zealand, Japan and the United Arab Emirates. The project has also received assistance from international bodies such as CCI, RMI and Carbon War Room.
The owners’ engineering services are being provided by the engineering service company Mannvit. Supervision and engineering for the drilling will be provided by Jacobs.
