Recent data indicate that approximately 13 per cent of the world's total energy comes from renewable sources. This figure is set to grow as decarbonisation strategies are pursued globally. T&T is endowed with both fossil fuels (oil and natural gas) and renewables.
The energy sector has been and will continue, for some significant period of time, to be dominated by the oil-and-gas sector. Renewable energy and energy conservation, of both the passive and active varieties, will have to play increasingly important roles in the medium to long term future. This requires a series of actions and commitments in the financial and legislative spheres, supported by a co-ordinated and sustained R&D effort.
A fundamental step in this process will be to identify which of the renewables will be pursued. The set of renewable sources of energy include solar, wind, wave, ocean stream, ocean thermal, tidal, geothermal, hydro, biogas and biomass.
Interestingly or amazingly, all of those sources are available locally for exploitation, to various degrees, with the exception of ocean thermal and tidal. Ocean thermal systems require a deep-water environment to be able to utilise the temperature differential between warmer waters near the surface and cooler waters at greater depths. The depth of the sea bed circumscribing T&T does not lend itself to this application. Greater tidal depth variation than that which occurs here is required for tidal energy systems to be feasible.
Solar energy technologies can be categorised into photo-voltaic and thermal applications. The former converts the sunlight to electricity while the latter to heat energy for water heating, water production through solar stills and crop drying.
The number of hours of sunshine in T&T is fewer than in Barbados and Jamaica and, further, the percentage of diffuse radiation is quite high, owing to the degree of cloud cover, dust and humidity. Cost-effective photovoltaic applications would require R&D to evaluate the long-term performance of the various available technologies. Water heaters, stills and dryers are technically feasible and do present business and manufacturing opportunities.
Performance standards, however, need to be determined and published to ensure that consumers are protected.The north-east trade winds favour the islands and thus both micro-turbines for residential use and large-scale wind farms are possible. Due to the small land mass, large-scale wind applications should be sited offshore, where the wind regime is undisturbed, and far from population centres.
Wave energy is really concentrated wind energy and wave energy electric production or directly coupled for potable water production can be supported by the wave regime off the northern and eastern coastlines. This application can be integrated with coast erosion mitigation and the local fishing industry.
Between Trinidad and Venezuela, the Guiana current flows. Soldado Rock is situated in this stream, which provides a far better source of energy than either wave energy or wind energy. The exploitation of this renewable resource is still in the R&D stage, though.
The mud volcanoes in south Trinidad do provide a source of geothermal energy. There is no set of comprehensive data available to determine the technical feasibility for power production. However, it would be possible to site a micro-demonstration plant for research and teaching purposes.Owing to the small size of our rivers, micro-hydro systems may be feasible upstream in the Northern Range for demonstration, teaching and local power production.
The landfills do provide a reasonable and unexploited source of biogas, as evidenced by how long the landfills burn.With regard to biomass, the now defunct Caroni Ltd did use bagasse as a fuel for its boilers and many other sugar refineries use the cane tops. Feasibility studies should be done to determine whether the grass cuttings generated by the state-sponsored landscaping and maintenance programme can provide a viable source of biomass.
To be continued.
