KEVON FELMINE
kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

With the sod turned for a 92 MW Brechin Cas­tle So­lar Site in Cou­va, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley says Gov­ern­ment will in­tro­duce leg­is­la­tion to al­low pri­vate and cor­po­rate cit­i­zens to sell so­lar pow­er to T&TEC.

In the fea­ture ad­dress at the site at Phoenix Park Road yes­ter­day, Row­ley said this will con­tribute to the re­duc­tion of pow­er gen­er­a­tion by Pow­er­Gen, help to re­duce T&T’s over­all car­bon emis­sions and trans­fer elec­tric­i­ty con­sump­tion from gas to sun pow­er.

“Very soon, you will see the gov­ern­ment go­ing to the Par­lia­ment and ad­just­ing the reg­u­la­tions where we have to, to en­sure that those peo­ple in the pri­vate sec­tor who in­vest in an in­di­vid­ual sup­ply of so­lar pow­er in their fa­cil­i­ties, be it at busi­ness­es or at homes, that the arrange­ments are made to en­cour­age them to sell their sur­plus pow­er in­to the grid,” Row­ley said.

Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties Mar­vin Gon­za­les said he re­viewed the pol­i­cy doc­u­ment which he will take to Cab­i­net with a rec­om­men­da­tion for Par­lia­ment to es­tab­lish the leg­isla­tive frame­work for pri­vate cit­i­zens to have so­lar pan­els on their homes. Gon­za­les said this will al­low them to in­vest for do­mes­tic or com­mer­cial pur­pos­es and re­duce their de­pen­dence on the pow­er grid.

“The pol­i­cy doc­u­ment is read­ing quite im­pres­sive­ly, I must say, and based on what I have read so far, the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go is very close to com­ing to the pop­u­la­tion with re­spect to a pol­i­cy and a leg­isla­tive frame­work to al­low for pri­vate cit­i­zens who may wish to do it from a com­mer­cial stand­point as well as do­mes­tic cit­i­zens who wish to do it on­ly for their homes,” he said.

Row­ley re­called at­tend­ing COP 26 in Glas­gow, Scot­land, in 2021, where there was a sug­ges­tion that banks should not fi­nance hy­dro­car­bon ex­plo­ration and ex­trac­tion to help to shut down use of prod­ucts that con­tribute to green­house emis­sions. When he saw peo­ple cheer­ing the sug­ges­tion, he ex­am­ined the con­se­quences for T&T if coun­tries adopt­ed it.

Row­ley said T&T lives off the hy­dro­car­bons in­dus­try at a time when the world wants change. He said if T&T ig­nores the push to re­duce its car­bon foot­print, mar­kets will take ac­tion against this coun­try and its prod­ucts.

He said T&T signed on­to the Paris Agree­ment and re­spond­ed by con­tin­u­ing to ex­tract hy­dro­car­bons as it is one of the great­est as­pects of the glob­al econ­o­my while re­duc­ing emis­sions.

“We will con­tin­ue to ex­tract the hy­dro­car­bon avail­able to us, oil and gas, as long as there is an in­ter­na­tion­al mar­ket. If we are go­ing to sell the last bar­rel of oil or the last mol­e­cule of gas, so be it. But we will do that. We will not get out of the busi­ness and leave oth­ers in it to in­struct us how to run our af­fairs.”

He said the ini­tia­tive com­plies with in­ter­na­tion­al com­mit­ments and re­duces lo­cal gas con­sump­tion so the coun­try can sell more to the glob­al mar­ket and earn for­eign cur­ren­cy.

bp’s Ex­ec­u­tive Vice Pres­i­dent, Gas and Low Car­bon En­er­gy, An­ja Dotzen­rath, ex­plained that re­new­able en­er­gy pro­duced from the project could re­place gas in pow­er gen­er­a­tion for the equiv­a­lent of more than 42,000 homes. It can free up more gas for ex­port, she said, which is was im­por­tant for T&T, the world and bp. 

“At bp, we are fo­cused on play­ing our part in solv­ing the en­er­gy trilem­ma, pro­vid­ing se­cure, af­ford­able and low­er car­bon en­er­gy. Last year’s events have shown us that the en­er­gy tran­si­tion must be or­der­ly. That means giv­ing the world the hy­dro­car­bons it needs to­day and in­vest­ing in low-car­bon en­er­gy. It is an and not an or. Be­cause of this, gas from T&T will be need­ed for decades to come,” Dotzen­rath said.

Eu­gene Okpere, Se­nior Vice Pres­i­dent and Coun­try Chair at Shell T&T Ltd, said while nat­ur­al gas will con­tin­ue to pro­vide re­li­able en­er­gy for the coun­try’s needs, the project is a step to­ward a low­er car­bon en­er­gy fu­ture.

bp and Shell are joint ven­ture part­ners in T&T’s first-ever util­i­ty-scale so­lar project. The com­pa­nies formed a con­sor­tium with Light Source BP (LS­bp) in re­sponse to the Gov­ern­ment’s RFP to build, own, op­er­ate, and sup­ply up to 130 MW of re­new­able pow­er to the na­tion­al grid. This RFP was in line with T&T’s Paris Agree­ment to re­duce green­house gas emis­sions in the pow­er gen­er­a­tion sec­tor by 30 per cent by 2030.

The project in­volves con­struc­tion of two so­lar sites at Brechin Cas­tle (92 MW) and Or­ange Grove (20 MW). When com­plet­ed, it will be the largest so­lar en­er­gy pro­duc­er in the Caribbean. It aims to low­er CO2 emis­sions by 150,000 tonnes an­nu­al­ly and will al­so re­duce gas de­mand for pow­er gen­er­a­tion, al­low­ing more for LNG sales and petro­chem­i­cal mar­kets.