| – CARICOM DirectorCaricom Sustainable Development Director,Wholesale Authentic Jerseys, Garfield Barnwell CARICOM Director of Sustainable Development, Garfield Barnwell, has said that there are numerous challenges in addressing renewable energy in the Caribbean.According to him, renewable energy is a technology, and making greater use of that technology would require some kind of modernization of the National Grid and also the power plants that provide energy to both household and commercial users.Barnwell also stated that, because renewable energy technologies are more or less merging technologies, they are often associated with a very high cost.“That high cost often poses major challenges for small developing countries like what we have in the Caribbean.”He said that other big challenges are the upfront cost associated with the access of the technology, and the cost of having the skilled manpower to operate both the plants and provide the energy services that are required in terms of making use of the technology.The Caribbean Community Secretariat has developed an Energy programme for the period 2009 — 2010, and the Caribbean Renewable Energy Development Programme (CREDP) is part of this.The goal of the energy programme is the increased regional energy security and the transformation of the region towards a more sustainable energy path.Barnwell said that in the context of the Caribbean, the CREDP is one of the first regional projects of its nature, and the initial objective of that programme is to address the challenges that the region faces in terms of its access to secure sources of energy and simultaneously to address problems related to providing some secure basis of energy. According to him, what was done for most of the project was capacity building; that is, trying to create a critical mass of technical personnel in both the public and private sectors so that people would be more creative with issues related to renewable energy.“The objective of building that mass was to provide an opportunity for those trained people to then go back to their various agencies and develop project proposals to access the financial mechanisms that were in place to facilitate building the kinds of infrastructure and providing the kinds of facilities that would enhance the use of renewable sources of energy.”He noted that one of the other areas that the programme focuses on is building the instruments to assist providers who are interested in building regional infrastructure and capacity to make use of renewable energy.“In the second half of the project, much of the focus is on building those infrastructural arrangements. Monies are being made available to finance the infrastructure, like putting up photovoltaic equipment in a few places and assisting some countries in terms of exploring more wind farms and putting up wind energy and those types of activities.”Barnwell pointed out that, in addressing issues of renewable energy in the Caribbean, one has to recognize that the countries in the region have different natural resource bases, and because of those differences, it is not a “one-size-fits-all kind of approach,” as it would rely upon the resource base that the country has.For instance, Barnwell stated, most of the countries of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) may be more suitable for solar and wind energy, but for the continental countries like Guyana, the advantage most likely would be, as most studies have shown, the use of the water resources.He noted that other important aspect of the project were also public awareness and public education, most of which was channelled to specific constituencies, largely the engineering and professional associations that address energy concerns.This newspaper understands that the vision of the energy programme is that, through its own efforts and those done in conjunction with international development partners, such as the UNDP, GTZ, IABD and OAS, there will be a broadening of the regional energy mix such that the amount of renewable energy sources will be increased from present levels.Barnwell had said that the Latin America and Caribbean Initiative for Sustainable Development (ILAC) has set a goal to ensure that, by the year 2010, the region as a whole will have at least 10 per cent of its energy consumption met by renewable sources.CREDP is but one activity under the Energy Programme which seeks to bring about the move towards a sustainable energy path.(Nadia Guyadeen) |
