Electricity consumers can expect cheaper rates with geothermal energy

Electricity consumers can expect cheaper rates with geothermal energy

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Details: Parent Category: Dec 2011; Category: Week ending Dec 10th, 2011; Published on Monday, 19 December 2011 16:37; Hits: 522

Grenada’s lone power company, the Grenada Electricity Services Limited (GRENLEC), is urging the people of the Tri-island State to see the overall benefits of renewable energy.

Chief Engineer Clive Hosten promised that geothermal energy will reduce the volatility of electricity prices.

Hosten stated that with diesel being subjected to the world’s prices, GRENLEC has been looking at renewable energy as a very important mix to its generation and the electricity needs of the country.

“We see oil prices changing drastically... With geothermal energy, because there will be less reliance on imported diesel, we’re looking at having a stable electricity price over a period of time which would reduce (the current price),” he said.

Hosten is optimistic that with geothermal energy there will be continuous power coming from that aspect of energy.

Mt. St. Catherine has been earmarked as a possible site for establishing the network.

Hosten said two to five acres of land space will be required for extracting heat from the earth just about one thousand feet down.

“Once you can tap into that heat source we can have, essentially, continuous electricity coming from that resource,” he said.

However, the Chief Engineer indicated that geothermal energy is expensive to develop.

He said various studies would have to be done to ensure that there is heat in the ground, and to locate where it is.

Once it is located, the heat would have to be piped within distances of one or two miles to the generating equipment and use it at that particular point.

Hosten pointed out that there will have to be a well field that would have pipes going into the ground to inject the heat source, and to re-inject it back into the earth.

On top of the pipes will be well heads that include pumps, valves, and control equipment.

It is anticipated that the plant would be 40 mega watts, but GRENLEC would start off in stages of 10, 15, 20 mega watts.

The Chief Engineer recognized that the power utility company would have to build sub-stations and transmission lines to harness the energy.

He said although it is not visible, they believe there is evidence of some geothermal resource up to a capacity of forty mega watts.

There is already small-scale interconnections involving 54 customers who are connected to the grid, with a renewable energy size of about three hundred kilo watts. This represents one of the lone power company’s peak load.

GRENLEC currently has a peak load of 30.5 mega watts, and a customer base of forty-four thousand.

Hosten also spoke of the geothermal site being used as a tourist attraction.

He said the right structure will be implemented to make geothermal in addition with the wind farm in Carriacou and Grenada a tourist attraction.

“We would have various points that would have information. We’ll have videos showing the construction, the operation. We’ll have tours so that persons, especially foreigners and even locals interested in the whole green energy, green concept can see what we have done in Grenada in terms of renewable energy,” he added.