President David Granger represented Guyana at the 2nd US-Caribbean-Central American Energy Summit, hosted by Vice President Joe Biden in Washington on May 3-4.
The first Summit last year emphasised the need for energy security through the substitution of renewables for petroleum products for energy development.
Even with current low oil prices, electricity prices in Guyana – as in the rest of the Caribbean – average over US>President David Granger represented Guyana at the 2nd US-Caribbean-Central American Energy Summit, hosted by Vice President Joe Biden in Washington on May 3-4.
The first Summit last year emphasised the need for energy security through the substitution of renewables for petroleum products for energy development.
Even with current low oil prices, electricity prices in Guyana – as in the rest of the Caribbean – average over US$0.25 per kWh, about three to four times more than what is paid in the US or other developed countries. This high cost of energy for manufacturing and other uses has acted as a fetter on Guyana and the region’s efforts to produce more value-added products competitively.
Following the previous Summit, several Caricom countries embarked on projects to reduce energy costs and petroleum dependency. Jamaica moved ahead in renewables with a 36 MW wind farm that received US$63 million in funding from the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation and other donors. Exploratory drilling and preparatory work has been initiated in Dominica, Grenada, Monserrat, St Lucia, St Kitts and Nevis, and St Vincent and the Grenadines to harness geo-thermal energy to generate electricity.
In Guyana, however, efforts have lagged even though this country launched a Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) in 2009, which had the generation of clean, renewable energy at its core.
The Amaila Falls Hydro-Electric Power (AFHEP) project was a flagship vehicle for renewable energy generation designed to replace the present generating capacity of 165 MW through petroleum products. Unfortunately, even though funding had been secured with US$80M committed by Norway from its GRIF contribution and the remaining funding had been secured though the China Development Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the developer Site Global, the government which was then in opposition, derailed the project through its obdurate resistance.
President Granger returned from Washington an evidently disappointed man since the US committed only US$10M grant to seed the efforts of the entire Latin America and the Caribbean to move into renewables. His comment, “That’s not serious money. Guyana will put in a bid… but that is not enough seed money for the magnitude of project that we are envisioning” must be evaluated against the recent moves by the US to encourage the region away from the Venezuelan-initiated PetroCaribe energy facility.
Back in June 2014 US Vice President Joseph Biden had launched with great fanfare, the Caribbean Energy Security Initiative (CSEI) at a meeting with Caribbean leaders in the Dominical Republic. Biden emphasised US commitment to Caribbean energy security. Six months later, in January 2015 this was followed up with the US-Caribbean Energy Security Summit (CESS) in Washington DC.
CESS was supposed to lay the groundwork to enable countries to build the fiscal and legal frameworks necessary for the Caribbean’s wider adoption of renewable energy and energy efficient technologies. But as one Think Tank pointed out after the meeting, the US needed “to help the region address the three elephants barely mentioned in that ever-so-diplomatic room on January 26: the continuing erosion of the Venezuelan economy and its credit support for so many of the regions’ key energy consumers; the serious barriers to entry of private capital to power generation in so many Caribbean economies; and the need to formulate a serious response to the Caribbean Community’s (Caricom) request for more rapid access to volumes of US LNG and CNG.”
When in April of 2015 US President Barack Obama met leaders of the Caribbean in Kingston, Jamaica, he committed to providing “early-stage funding” for clean energy projects in the Caribbean. And also to establish a Task Force to examine the future of clean energy development in the Caribbean and Central America. And now just US$10M.
President Granger is correct. We cannot depend on aid for our energy security. AFHEP must be returned to the front burner.<.25 per kWh, about three to four times more than what is paid in the US or other developed countries. This high cost of energy for manufacturing and other uses has acted as a fetter on Guyana and the region’s efforts to produce more value-added products competitively.
Following the previous Summit, several Caricom countries embarked on projects to reduce energy costs and petroleum dependency. Jamaica moved ahead in renewables with a 36 MW wind farm that received US million in funding from the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation and other donors. Exploratory drilling and preparatory work has been initiated in Dominica, Grenada, Monserrat, St Lucia, St Kitts and Nevis, and St Vincent and the Grenadines to harness geo-thermal energy to generate electricity.
In Guyana, however, efforts have lagged even though this country launched a Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) in 2009, which had the generation of clean, renewable energy at its core.
The Amaila Falls Hydro-Electric Power (AFHEP) project was a flagship vehicle for renewable energy generation designed to replace the present generating capacity of 165 MW through petroleum products. Unfortunately, even though funding had been secured with USM committed by Norway from its GRIF contribution and the remaining funding had been secured though the China Development Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the developer Site Global, the government which was then in opposition, derailed the project through its obdurate resistance.
President Granger returned from Washington an evidently disappointed man since the US committed only USM grant to seed the efforts of the entire Latin America and the Caribbean to move into renewables. His comment, “That’s not serious money. Guyana will put in a bid… but that is not enough seed money for the magnitude of project that we are envisioning” must be evaluated against the recent moves by the US to encourage the region away from the Venezuelan-initiated PetroCaribe energy facility.
Back in June 2014 US Vice President Joseph Biden had launched with great fanfare, the Caribbean Energy Security Initiative (CSEI) at a meeting with Caribbean leaders in the Dominical Republic. Biden emphasised US commitment to Caribbean energy security. Six months later, in January 2015 this was followed up with the US-Caribbean Energy Security Summit (CESS) in Washington DC.
CESS was supposed to lay the groundwork to enable countries to build the fiscal and legal frameworks necessary for the Caribbean’s wider adoption of renewable energy and energy efficient technologies. But as one Think Tank pointed out after the meeting, the US needed “to help the region address the three elephants barely mentioned in that ever-so-diplomatic room on January 26: the continuing erosion of the Venezuelan economy and its credit support for so many of the regions’ key energy consumers; the serious barriers to entry of private capital to power generation in so many Caribbean economies; and the need to formulate a serious response to the Caribbean Community’s (Caricom) request for more rapid access to volumes of US LNG and CNG.”
When in April of 2015 US President Barack Obama met leaders of the Caribbean in Kingston, Jamaica, he committed to providing “early-stage funding” for clean energy projects in the Caribbean. And also to establish a Task Force to examine the future of clean energy development in the Caribbean and Central America. And now just USM.
President Granger is correct. We cannot depend on aid for our energy security. AFHEP must be returned to the front burner.
