Kenesjay Green undertakes hydrogen project for Dominica

Trinidad-based Kenesjay Green Ltd (KGL) will undertake a green hydrogen country assessment for Dominica, which will focus on creating a roadmap for the utilisation of its geothermal resources, while supporting regional and global low-carbon energy transition.

The project is being carried out in conjunction with the Climate Resilience Execution Agency for Dominica (CREAD) a government statutory agency, KGL said in a media release on Tuesday.

KGL said the data will be used to create a country profile for industrialised renewable energy developments and identification of areas requiring special attention where the output will guide the national green investment choices and prioritising the areas of intervention.

KGL also incorporated its newest subsidiary – Kenesjay Green (Dominica) Ltd – which it said was part of its overall mission to develop a pipeline of viable decarbonising and green projects across the Caribbean.

It added the project was being conducted under a memorandum of understanding signed at COP 26, where both KGL and CREAD partnered to develop the green industrial eco-parks (GIEP), green hydrogen production, carbon sequestration, and decarbonising industries.

Chairman Phillip Julien said, “We are pleased that the government of Dominica through CREAD has accelerated Dominica’s transformation possibility, in part through the recently signed MOU and this country assessment. This truly epitomises for us what an effective public/private partnership can look like. Dominica’s type of positive leadership and untapped green energy is what we need as a region to achieve net zero by 2050.

“KGL is pleased to contribute from a private sector investment perspective, towards developing the viable ‘green’ business case for interconnecting Caricom’s renewable energy resources.”

CEO of CREAD Francine Baron said the recent approvals by the government to develop geothermal based-green industrialisation projects for Dominica through the green industrial parks was to develop important bankable projects that would lend itself to investments in the end.

Baron said, “Dominica has taken a lead role in regional climate change advocacy and we welcome KGL’s plan to support this type of regional renewable energy advancement and integration, something that the Caribbean now has to accelerate given our individual challenges and plans for climate resilience.”

Julien, also speaking at the Energy Chamber’s Caribbean Sustainable Energy Conference 2022 on Tuesday, said its work in the region with decarbonisation and the region’s vast amount of renewable energy supplies, which when unlocked can contribute to a Caricom net zero by 2050.

“Caricom has been sitting on an unrealised potential of renewable energy supply, some 24 gigawatts. There has been a sufficient industrial scale market that’s commercially robust enough and large enough on each island to justify the substantial investment associated with the harnessing of this renewable energy. We now have the opportunity to change all that.

“There is an industrial scale market demand right here in Caricom that may or will unlock the industrial scale supply of renewable energy from Caricom, which may or will enable domestic hydrogen economies for Caricom to be realised.”

KGL is also the owner and project developer for the proposed US$300 million NewGen hydrogen project in TT.

He explained that there is growing urgency from an economic perspective for TT because of the country’s petrochemical industry has been operating below capacity due to supply constraints with no immediate or guaranteed remedies for rebounding.

“The NewGen project is one of the much-needed additional sources of hydrogen that can help compensate the deficit of this natural gas, along with the other possibilities such as deep-water gas supply. In fact, the NewGen supply can be considered as an upstream source with a cleaner feedstock for the petrochemical plants. It will also be commercially competitive on a commercial scale.”

He added the NewGen project has received Town and Country Division approvals and environmental clearance certificates for the project’s continuation and development.