sectoral economic costs and benefits of ghg mitigation - IPCC

Oliver Headley
elevation of about 150 metres above sea level, facing the Atlantic Ocean in the northeastern
parish of St Andrew with the trade winds providing a reliable source of energy. At full power,
this mill is capable of grinding one tonne of sugar cane per hour. The government of Barbados is
now committed to returning the country to obtaining 40% of its primary energy from renewable
sources by 2010.
Modern Wind Turbines
Wind turbine technology is now mature and in places with good wind regimes, it is possible to
generate electricity at a cost of US 5¢/kWh. In the Caribbean, Curaçao, Marie Galante and
Montserrat have installed wind turbines for power generation. Unfortunately, in Montserrat the
Soufrière volcano destroyed their turbines when it devastated the southern part of the island.
Table 2 shows some of the wind turbine systems which have been set up in the Caribbean. With
the trade winds providing a very reliable source of energy, it is possible to produce base load
power from a modern wind turbine farm. The normal rule of thumb is that up to 20% of the load
may be carried by wind, but Noel of VERGNET SA (1999) reports that under special
circumstances such as when a diesel plant fails or there is a shortage of diesel fuel, there are
records of weeks when the wind farm produces 80% of the electrical energy.
Now that off-shore installations have become technically feasible, Buerskens (2000) has
suggested that we can begin to construct 1000 MW wind farms in international waters. One of
the projects in the planning phase is for a 1200 MW wind park covering 200 km 2 between
Helgoland and Schleswig-Holstein in the North Sea. The first phase is for 500 MW and should
cost about DM1.5 billion. Because of the increased site development cost of marine installations,
turbines designed for off-shore use tend to be bigger than those in land based wind farms, hence
designers e.g. NedWind (NEG-MICON Holland) are already developing single machines as big
as 5MW for deployment in the North Sea.
Table 2
Examples of Wind Turbine Systems in the Caribbean
Site
Number and Size Total Power (kW) Operational Status
of Turbines
Tera Corá, Curaçao 12 @ 250 kW 3000 Running
Playa Canoa, Curaçao 9000 To be initiated in May 2000
La Désirade, Guadeloupe 20 @ 25 kW 500 Running
Petit Place, Marie Galante 25 @ 60 kW 1500 Running
Munro College, Jamaica 1 @ 225 kW 225 kW Running
Grand Turk 1 @ 50 kW 50 Running
Montserrat 2 @ 100 kW 200 kW Damaged by volcano
Lamberts, Barbados 1 @ 250 kW 250 kW Derelict; new wind farm
planned
At the moment, Jamaica is planning to set up a 20 MW wind farm on the Manchester plateau and
Barbados is looking into refurbishing the Lamberts site with two wind farms, one of 9.24 MW
and the other of 4 MW.
Photovoltaic (PV) Systems
PV systems such as the installation at Harrison’s Cave in Barbados are particularly suited to
isolated sites such as small islands since they do not require the complicated maintenance which
is normally associated with conventional diesel generators. They also do not require any fuel, and
for applications like water pumping, they do not require any energy storage in batteries. Table 3
shows some of the PV systems which have been installed in the Caribbean.
It should be noted that the Juana Diaz and Frederiksted installations are no longer operational.
159