The Anguilla Electricity Company (ANGLEC), one of the island’s most financially successful statutory bodies, has broken ground for a 3.3 million US dollar one megawatt solar farm to produce about 10% of Anguilla’s total energy needs. Among other things, the coming renewable energy system aims at providing cheaper electricity for consumers and offsetting or saving up to 15 million EC dollars by avoiding the use of diesel otherwise called fossil fuel.
The ground-breaking ceremony was held on Monday this week, December 14, at Corito, a stone’s throw from ANGLEC’s main power plant. The entire site not just overlooks the Corito landfill area, but more prominently the scenic southern sea coast of Anguilla which otherwise might have been a prime tourism development location.
ANGLEC’s Chief Executive Officer, Mr. David Gumbs, said in part: “We are really excited because, after a considerable period of effort, discussion and debate, we have come to this point where officially we will be doing the ground-breaking for the development of a one megawatt solar farm. This has been something long in the making. We have been working tirelessly at evaluating twenty different companies which participated in the bidding process.”
Mr. Gumbs continued: “It [the project] has a significant impact on our economy and on our environment. We will be able to offset two million gallons of fuel by the introduction of this initiative; offset fifteen million [dollars] – depending on how you estimate that and how the cost of fuel pans out over the next couple of years. But you are looking at roughly fifteen million of estimated cost that this project will essentially avoid. By doing so, the development of the plant will have a significant impact on our economy and will contribute millions of dollars to the local economy. We will purchase equipment and use technical resources from abroad, but this project, on a whole, has a significant impact on Anguilla from an environmental standpoint. We are expected to offset 1.2 million tons of carbon in our environment, given the size of Anguilla, the sensitiveness we have with our tourism industry – and the products we sell which include our beaches and clean air environment. These are all critical and went into consideration in the development of this plant.”
Mr. Gumbs stated that the solar farm would be able to withstand hurricanes of up to 120 miles per hour.
Mr. Harold Ruan, Chairman of ANGLEC’s Board of Directors, said the company was heading in a good direction to meet some of the economic challenges facing Anguilla. He was happy that the solar plant would offset the tremendous cost of fuel being purchased by ANGLEC – resulting in much savings by consumers.
“We are in the business of selling kilowatt hours, but we have a conscience and will not burden the consumers with unnecessary costs,” he said. “With the implementation of this one megawatt solar plant, it is our hope and desire to give our consumers a more affordable rate of electricity.”
Mr. Ruan was confident that solar energy would eventually become the primary source of energy in Anguilla. He was grateful to all stakeholders for ensuring that the island realised the solar farm project.
Minister of Infrastructure, Mr. Curtis Richardson, commended the management and staff of ANGLEC for their many years of service and for being a very strong electricity company. He also commended and thanked the previous Board, headed by Mr. Artnell Richardson, for taking the bold step towards bringing renewable energy to Anguilla – and he urged the present Board, chaired by Mr. Harold Ruan, to work towards greater achievements.
Mr. Richardson went on: “In these days, in which Government has to manage Anguilla, we are hearing about increase in taxes. I think that the Board and Management of ANGLEC have a real opportunity to demonstrate to the people of Anguilla that there is still a way for us to bring down the cost of living in our island. That charge is placed on you and I expect you to perform well.”
The Minister also expressed thanks to Mr. Pedro Sanchez, CEO of Uriel Renewables, the company in northern Spain which is developing the solar farm in Anguilla; and the Caribbean Development Bank, represented by Mr. Andrew Dupigny, for providing the funding.
Mr. Sanchez said his company, established in 1990, had accumulated twenty-five years of experience in several renewable energy technologies including solar farm systems more recently. He stated that he was more proud of his company’s success in solar systems in terms of cost effectiveness and the integration of the systems in the electricity grid in a friendly manner. “I would like to briefly mention one of the last plants we have developed – which is a solar plant [in Puerto Rico] with a total power of 27 megawatt, the largest in the Caribbean,” he told his listeners. “This is a plant we put into operation about a year ago. What is most remarkable about that plant is not so much the size, but the devices that go with it.”
He pointed out that in developing the plant for Anguilla – for twenty-five years and beyond – his company had taken into account such issues as corrosion, hurricane activity and grid interconnection. “It has been a lot of work for many months. In that respect I would like to underline the excellent cooperation of the management team of ANGLEC,” he added. “The exchange of information has been very smooth, and I truly believe that without that cooperation it would have been very difficult to develop a plant like the one we have designed.”
Speaking on behalf of the Caribbean Development Bank, Mr. Andrew Dupigny recalled that in its energy policy, for 2008 to 2020, the Anguilla Government set a goal for the island to have a carbon neutral economy and to become energy independent through the development of indigenous renewable sources.
“ANGLEC, in support of this strategy, and also to meet its own target for renewable energy penetration, and to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels, has developed this particular intervention,” he said. He noted that among other incremental benefits would be an average saving of 384,000 litres of fuel a year.
“This project is estimated to cost approximately 3.3 million US dollars and will be financed through internally-generated funds from ANGLEC as well as the CDB loan. The CDB loan will include 1.6 million dollars from resources provided to the bank by the European Investment Bank – under the Climate Action Line of Credit which allows for an interest rate of 50% subsidy on loans amounting up to 50% of the overall project cost.”
Mr. Sylvan Brooks, ANGLEC’s Systems Control Engineer/Project Manager, gave the closing remarks. He said solar energy in Anguilla was in abundance, inexhaustible, would reduce pollution and keep the cost of fossil fuels lower. “However, there are some challenges with solar energy,” he observed. “First of all, is the huge area for the solar panels. We are having a one megawatt plant and that is going to take about four or five acres – so in the future, in order to expand, we will need quite a bit of land, and the good news is that there is quite a bit of vacant land in this area so, hopefully, that will not be a challenge.” He noted that other challenges included battery storage which had not yet reached its potential; the need to look closely at storage solutions; the need to safeguard the support structures for solar panels from corrosion and hurricanes; and the need to provide a high quality of solar power to consumers to operate their sensitive equipment.
“We have had to put a lot of research into the solar farm to ensure that all components of the system are properly designed, and there is nothing that can cause any potential weakness in general,” Mr. Brooks concluded.
