Vinlec micro grid project to bring renewable energy to Mayreau

The St Vincent Electricity Services Ltd (VINLEC) is in the process of developing a micro grid project that would bring clean, renewable energy to the Grenadine island of Mayreau.

And already, VINLEC has acquired two lots of land adjacent to the island’s diesel power plant to facilitate the installation of the grid.

The micro grid project is being undertaken in partnership with the Rocky Mountain Institute-Carbon War Room, which is an American non-profit organization whose main goal is to reduce the root causes of climate change throughout the world.

At a town hall meeting on Mayreau on August 17, Owen Lewis, operations manager, Rocky Mountain Institute in the Caribbean, says the Institute has a programme called ‘The Islands Energy’ programme, which works with a number of island governments and utilities to advance the transition from using diesel to renewable energy.

Fidel Neverson, national project co-ordinator for the Rocky Mountain Institute, said work on the project started in March, 2017 and much has been accomplished silently.

“We started with an environmental and social impact assessment where we had an environmental scientist to look at potential impacts to the environment, as well as the Mayreau community.

“We also undertook a geo-technical analysis, which is work on the site itself, where we try to determine what is the soil composition on the site, what is the chemical composition, what is the bearing capacity of the soil…to inform us what type of foundation we need to use for the solar panels and what drainage requirements are needed for the site,” Neverson said.

He said the heavy work is expected to begin in October and will continue into January and February, 2018.

Ricky Wright, VINLEC’s senior planning engineer, said his company sees the Mayreau project as one they can learn from to be able to replicate it on the other Grenadine islands.

“Mayreau is uniquely sized, so that we can do high penetration of solar. During the daylight hours, if we can even push it as high as to be able to turn off the generators and produce only from solar using electronics and batteries to produce electricity, we see it as being a good pilot project.”

Wright also stated that VINLEC is looking at having a higher production of renewable energy on the islands. He added that the company is constantly looking at ways to be more efficient and utilize more of what the country has naturally.

“To produce electricity in St Vincent and on each island in the Grenadines there is a difference in cost, but all islands pay the same amount of money for a unit of electricity.

“On the mainland, because we have bigger, more efficient generators, from one gallon of diesel we can produce maybe 18kw; on Mayreau, because of the size and small units, we can produce maybe 15kw per gallon,” Wright said.

Under the micro grid project, the plan is to construct approximately 130 kw of solar and battery storage on Mayreau.

Earland Myers, planning engineer for Transmission and Distribution and VINLEC’s project manager for the Mayreau micro-grid project, said currently, the generation capacity on Mayreau is 308 kw, which is supplied by diesel.

“With the construction of this project, we’ll basically see a mixture of diesel and solar being used to generate electricity. From this project, approximately 46 per cent of the energy generated would be only from solar.”

Also in attendance at the town hall meeting were residents of the island who asked several questions about how the project would benefit them and the island on a whole.

“With this solar project, there will be a reduction in the use of the diesel engine; so therefore, there will be less pollution because we’ll be using less fossil fuel. There’s less noise, because these engines will be running far less than before. This will make Mayreau much more open to tourism, because less pollution and less noise from the engines,” Myers said in response.

He told the gathering that the project is expected to take approximately five months to complete, at a cost of between US$600,000 and US$1 million.