NEW PV PLANT COMING

BARBADOS is set to get a spanking new four megawatt (MW) solar photovoltaic (PV) plant.

The $24 million facility, for which permission has already been given, is to be located on 12 acres of land at Maynards, St. Peter. The project is to be undertaken by Enermax Limited, a 100 per cent fully-owned Barbadian company.

The plant will combine solar PV electricity production and agriculture, producing both solar electricity and agricultural products.

Hallam Edwards, Chairman of Enermax Limited, and his son Carlos Edwards, who is the Managing Director, told a news conference yesterday at the Barbados Chamber of Commerce and Industry, that the annual electricity output will be approximately 6.4 million kilowatt hours, saving over two million litres of fuel and will be enough to power over 2 000 homes.

Edwards, a professional engineer with extensive experience in power generation and energy, said that once in operation, the annual dollar value of
the kilowatt hours saved will amount to some $4.4 million.

Enermax is a power plant which has built solar PV installations for residential, commercial, and utilities customers, as they plan to do with the new project.

He said that the panels to be built will number 13 500.

“As far as the ownership is concerned, our company Enermax Limited is a 100 per cent Barbadian-owned company and we have discussions going on with some possible financiers at the moment, including two entities, both with substantial resources, who have expressed an interest in the project,” said Carlos Edwards.

“As far as the design installation is concerned, we will deal with the entire project which is design engineering and procurement installation and operation of the plant,” said Hallam Edwards.

Referring to the dual role of the facility where there will be electricity production as well as agricultural output, Edwards said that this was done to overcome a situation where space is limited and the usual reluctance by the authorities to give permission to put in a PV plant in an area used specifically for agricultural purposes.

“So therefore we have looked carefully at that and considered how we could satisfy both requirements,” he explained.

“Therefore the objective that we have now with this dual role is that the first thing that we do for any given area is to maximise the amount of electricity that can be produced in that area, and thereafter when that is defined, we will try to maximise the amount of vegetables and fruits that can be grown on the same area,” Edwards explained.

There will also be energy storage in the form of batteries which will be charged by the same solar panels.

“We are discussing this with the Barbados Light and Power. The stored energy will be used to smoothen the fluctuations in the electricity output due to the changing cloud cover,” he added.