Government Plans Major Solar Plant, Opens Door for Public Investment in Renewable Energy
The government plans to acquire a large-scale solar energy plant within the next two years and intends to give Antiguans and Barbudans an opportunity to invest directly in future renewable energy projects, Prime Minister Gaston Browne announced Saturday.
Browne said the proposed project is part of the government’s long-term strategy to reduce dependence on fossil fuels by expanding renewable energy generation while broadening ownership of the country’s electricity infrastructure.
“Our intention, within the next maybe 24 months, is to commence in earnest the acquisition of a significant solar plant, maybe about 15 to 20 gigawatt hours,” Browne said during his weekly radio programme on Pointe FM.
The prime minister said the government wants the project to differ from previous energy developments by allowing ordinary citizens to become investors instead of concentrating ownership among a small number of companies.
“We want this to be a shared situation which will provide opportunity for Antiguans and Barbudans to invest in energy,” Browne said. “We want to diversify the ownership.”
He said the administration wants to create new investment opportunities for both residents and nationals living overseas while ensuring the benefits of the country’s energy transition are shared more broadly.
“One of the things that we’re trying to do is to provide more opportunities for domestic ownership,” Browne said. “We want Antiguans abroad, a cadre of Antiguans and Barbudans, to have different investment instruments in which to invest. I truly believe that energy is one such area that we have to open up.”
Browne said future electricity generation should not remain under the control of only a few entities, arguing that wider ownership would strengthen the country’s energy sector and create more opportunities for wealth creation.
“This type of close-knit arrangement, when you have one or two entities controlling our power, first of all, I think is dangerous,” he said. “We want to broaden it, share the pie and provide opportunities to others.”
The prime minister said existing energy companies would not be excluded from participating in future renewable projects.
“This doesn’t preclude APC from participating,” Browne said. “They could end up, based on their resources, becoming the single largest investor.”
He emphasized that the policy is intended to expand economic participation rather than target any current operators.
“I say this with no hostility towards Eagle or towards the Hadid group of companies,” Browne said. “The members of the Hadid family and I get on pretty well. We haven’t had any issues, but I speak truth to power, and ultimately my responsibility is to the people of Antigua and Barbuda. No friendship, no interests supersede the interests of the people.”
Browne said the planned solar facility will complement the government’s move toward liquefied natural gas, which he described as a transition fuel that will reduce electricity costs and lower carbon emissions while Antigua and Barbuda expands its renewable energy capacity.
“We’ll have two benefits — a reduction in price compared to using diesel or heavy fuel, and similarly there’s going to be a reduction in our carbon footprint,” Browne said of the broader energy transition.
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If this man taught his skills from some of the best Ponzi Schemers in the world ( cough,Allen Sanford), then I’m an idiot for calling him out as much as I do.
Classic Ponzi Schemers move, directly from their playbook, is to promise extra ordinary returns on your investments to lure you into their con.. 😂.
GB talks like a classic Ponzi Schemer.lol.
He also hype the things that are highly unlikely, but the real things he is working on, are happening in the dark, like the policy to make Spanish Antigua’s second language.. 😂.. I bet no Antiguan has ever heard of that policy until it was implemented smack in their faces..
You never heard any hype about that one over the radio now did you?
And you never heard any hype over the radio when he went and make LIAT a 70%-30% deal.
Classic Ponzi Schemer..distract you with hype, when the real deals are happening over here in the dark.
You don’t want Antiguan’s investing in no energy sector GB, so stop it..if you did, LIAT wouldn’t have been sold off to the Nigerians and the Alpha money would have been used to pay workers their backpay..That’s real investment in your people, not hype.
😂 This guy is the best, and if I wasn’t as solid as I am,he would have convince me as well.lol.
Pure hoodwinked Antiguan’s are getting..my goodness this guy is good..I give him that.
Chuuups! Solar plant only help the politicians to beg more funds from international donors, the passive solar system with or without battery will alleviate the workload off of hadeeds powerplant during transients and other fault that could spike on the system etc. the agreement signed by the ALP government is that Hadeed will get pay for a set demand of kilowatts hour regardless that APUA take off the power to work during the day since they don’t do live line maintenance work where no power comes off.
The solar system ony stabilize the generation capacity and not help in the reduction of exorbitant rates that APUA charges us, so it doesn’t matter how much they acquire green energy,Antiguans will not see any benefits. Barbuda they claim is run on 40% or higher solar and ask barbudans if their bills change? if it was the APUA that own the power generation plants, then we would benefit, but to fool the public to give politicians visibility in the green energy business to extort more funds from international donors is dishonesty, the placement of the wind turbine at the viv Richards stadium shows that it is meant to be flamboyant to get funding during cricket match and international broadcasting rather than been strategic, because the high wind areas like Shirley’s and bogey peak and new Winthorpes hill the most suitable sights are ignored.
The other engineers are stymied by the electricity manager who is on board with the politicians, or else the other engineers would have an input that would benefit the country, there is an engineer Mr Girvan Piggott that headed that area of green energy who was removed and silence when the ALP won the 2014 election, I believe it is because the electricity manager feels threatened by this engineer because previously his father was the best engineer that APUA ever saw, he impart skill training and engineering standards that saved APUA monies today, like he did the open Delta transformer power supply for the pump houses that wasn’t power demanding only requiring 57.7% of it kva capacity, and there was a time a property was far from the distribution line and the secondary voltage going there fell below limits and Mr George Piggott had a transformer hooked up reverse vice versa to get the proper voltage to the customer, so he input 240 volt and derive the 11000 kv line voltage about a mile away and reconvert by another transformer, no engineer today in APUA dare to do engineering on this level, most engineers in the system today operate as amateur electrician or supervisors, you see this man Mr George Piggott did not take instructions from politicians, when he leaved APUA there was messages and money offered for him to come back but he refused to take instructions from politicians and instead do real engineering, he was the one that did the study and calculation to set up the 69kv tower substation system we have today, because back then we were operating on brownout, long feeders with serious voltage drop. So this is the reason why the electricity manager have to put Mr Girvan Piggott into obscurity so he can have attention doing nothing but oppressing the workers, not imparting any knowledge.
I am for green energy govern by a utility commission, and I acknowledge that APUA or the hadeeds got to control it because it could create instability for the generation terms of frequency, you will have to keep a constant load pattern or else the system comes down to a blackout.
This is long overdue. Antigua should have been the leading solar energy and solar manufacturing country in the WI 20 years ago. Kudos to the PM if he can get it done.
MAKE SURE TO BUY BACK UP BATTERIES THIS TIME.REMEMBERED WHAT HAPPENED WITH THE SOLAR SYSTEM AT COOLIDGE AIRPORT.DO NOT MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE A SECOND TIME.
The way the PM going soon from now all investments here will be locally owned which is not a bad thing
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