Multi-million dollar green energy project earmarked for Saint Lucia
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Multi-million dollar green energy project earmarked for Saint Lucia |
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Contact: Julita Peter
Friday 21 January 2011 – Representatives of Island Green Energy and Elementa, the Canada-based companies spearheading the proposed waste to energy plant at Deglos, rounded a visit here on last Friday. While here, the visiting parties met with government officials and LUCELEC, to discuss the scope and the requirements for advancing the project.
The Government of St. Lucia signed off on a Memorandum of Understanding with Island Green Energy and Elementa, in October 2010.
“We have been developing for the past eleven years a waste to energy technology that will compete with thinks like incineration,” says Tom Hughes Elementa’s Chief Development Officer, “so it is a low impact environmental strategy and technology that we utilize and what it does basically is convert existing waste strains in the community to a renewal energy source, which we call synthetic gas which is used to generate electricity.”
Green Energy and Elementa say the proposed “waste-to-energy project”, will not only impact the environment positively, but will also have tremendous spin-offs for the local economy.
“We are going to create 150 jobs in construction, that’s 50 million dollars coming to the economy. The overall peripheral impact of that span is probably another 150 million dollars in the community; it’s 50 million dollars to build the facility, but 150 million dollars of social impact. The key thing is that we will have 40-45 permanent green jobs in the new facility.
Meantime, LUCELEC Managing Director Trevor Louisy, assured the representatives of Island Green Energy and Elementa that LUCELEC is not opposed to the waste-to-energy project.
LUCELEC, he noted, is obligated to ensure that this project—or any other alternative energy projects designed to feed into the national electricity grid—are consistent with the guidelines in the National Energy Policy approved by Cabinet as well as the requirements of the Electricity Supply Act.
LUCELEC says it is looking forward to progressing the waste to energy initiative by actively engaging all the key stakeholders in the process including the various ministries with responsibility for public utilities, energy, and waste management.
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