Sean Nero

Re­new­able en­er­gy ob­jec­tives set out by Cari­com will be­come the sav­ing grace of mem­bers states sad­dled with high en­er­gy cost, says to Niebert Blair, project of­fi­cer with the En­er­gy Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty Sec­re­tari­at.She said ben­e­fits of those plans could yield re­sults as ear­ly as next year, based in the or­gan­i­sa­tion's Caribbean Sus­tain­able en­er­gy tar­gets for re­new­able pow­er and en­er­gy ef­fi­cien­cy.

The re­new­able en­er­gy agen­da set out in the short term plan, with progress to be re­alised with the next ten months, in­cludes 20 per cent re­new­able en­er­gy gen­er­a­tion. Five years af­ter that, in the medi­um term, the pro­jec­tion for de­vel­op­ment of this en­er­gy source based on cal­cu­la­tions would be 28 per cent, with a 19 per cent hike by 2027.

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Nicole Olivierre said laws gov­ern­ing the op­er­a­tions T&TEC and the Reg­u­lat­ed In­dus­tries Com­mis­sion (RIC) will be amend­ed to fa­cil­i­tate gov­ern­ment's re­new­able en­er­gy agen­da.

De­spite low­er glob­al en­er­gy prices, she said, en­er­gy ef­fi­cien­cy con­tin­ues to be a pri­or­i­ty as Gov­ern­ment is com­mit­ted to a de­vel­op­ment strat­e­gy which pro­motes con­ser­va­tion and ef­fi­cien­cy, as well as the man­ner in which re­sources are man­aged.

To en­sure that the life of T&T's re­sources ex­tends to meet the needs of fu­ture gen­er­a­tions, a tar­get has been set that by 2030 ten per cent of T&T's elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­a­tion will come from re­new­able sources.Blair said with im­por­ta­tion of pe­tro­le­um and re­lat­ed prod­ucts be­came an even greater bur­den for Cari­com coun­tries, re­new­able en­er­gy will be an even greater pri­or­i­ty for re­gion­al lead­ers.

"En­er­gy plays a vi­tal role in the eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment of any so­ci­ety. En­er­gy is the en­gine for the pro­duc­tion of goods and ser­vices across all eco­nom­ic sec­tors," she said.

"A crit­i­cal is­sue is that the ma­jor­i­ty of Cari­com coun­tries im­port pe­tro­le­um in high vol­umes, which is the chief source of pri­ma­ry com­mer­cial en­er­gy. Para­dox­i­cal­ly, the ma­jor­i­ty of coun­tries have vast re­new­able en­er­gy re­sources which re­main to be de­vel­oped. They are ide­al­ly suit­ed for de­vel­op­ment of cost ef­fec­tive re­new­able en­er­gy sys­tems, with am­ple wind, bio­mass, so­lar and oth­er re­sources."

Blair said en­er­gy sys­tems across the re­gion con­tin­ue to de­pend on ex­pen­sive, im­port­ed fos­sil fu­els, with elec­tric­i­ty and trans­port sec­tors char­ac­terised by small vol­umes and in­ef­fi­cient fu­el use which re­sult in high en­er­gy prices.

"In essence, the con­flu­ence of the afore­men­tioned ac­tions will like­ly em­pow­er Cari­com coun­tries to trans­form their en­er­gy sit­u­a­tion from their cur­rent state of in­ef­fi­cien­cy with de­pen­dence of most­ly ex­pen­sive, im­port­ed fos­sil-fu­els to one in which their do­mes­tic and pro­duc­tive sec­tors are pow­ered through cost ef­fec­tive, ef­fi­cient in­dige­nous sources," she said.

She said oth­er ben­e­fits to the plan in­clude re­duc­ing the vol­ume of GDP while pre­serv­ing for­eign ex­change re­sources spent to pay for en­er­gy im­ports.

Blair said in April 2008 the Cari­com Sec­re­tari­at em­barked on the En­er­gy Pro­gramme which is a de­par­ture from the tra­di­tion­al "project ap­proach" and fa­cil­i­tates greater re­spon­sive­ness in car­ry­ing out the en­er­gy re­lat­ed man­dates through a har­monised ap­proach.

"In March, 2013, Cari­com mem­ber states adopt­ed a re­gion­al en­er­gy pol­i­cy. The pol­i­cy called for a trans­for­ma­tion of the en­er­gy sec­tor in the re­gion and iden­ti­fies a num­ber of com­mon strate­gic ob­jec­tives. Key among these are en­er­gy ef­fi­cien­cy; se­cure en­er­gy sup­plies; and trade in en­er­gy, es­pe­cial­ly as this re­lat­ed to the im­pact on rel­a­tive com­pet­i­tive­ness in the Cari­com Sin­gle Mar­ket and Econ­o­my (CSME) and pur­chas­ing and trans­porta­tion arrange­ments," she said.