Data shows potential for local wind power assets

NOT only does wind power have a bright future in the region, this form of renewable energy is being seen as of particular importance to this country and its petrochemical industry.

This was the consensus of three panelists at the recent Caribbean Sustainable Energy conference in Port of Spain, on the topic, does wind power have a future in the Caribbean?

A release from the Energy Chamber said that panelists Augosto Bonzi Teixeira, Kevin Atwaroo and Sheena Gosine, all felt that wind power could play a crucial role in TT's effort to green its petrochemical production sector and produce low carbon commodities such as ammonia and methanol.

Teixeira is an energy specialist at the IDB, Atwaroo is the power systems engineer at National Energy and Gosine is the Energy International Relations and Affairs Advisor to the Minister of Energy as well as vice chair of the Wind Energy Steering Committee of TT.

Wind energy, the release said, has been an ongoing topic of conversation in TT for several ears, but until now, had been based on theoretic models and simulations, rather than robust actual data collected in the field.

Provisional wind resource data is now beginning to be available and it seems to be pointing in a positive direction. This data only covers six months (rather than the full year that is required at a minimum for any investor) and paints a positive picture for the potential of wind power locally.

One of the challenges for any wind power investor is having sufficient data on the wind resources.

This is critical since the design of the wind project and financing are predicated on the data that a wind resource assessment will provide. Without robust data there will be no investments in wind.

For this reason, governments wanting to attract investments in wind, collect wind speed data and make it available to potential investors, much as they do with seismic data to attract investors in oil or gas.

A wind resource assessment programme (WRAP) commenced in November with the deployment of two light detection and ranging devices (LiDARs) onshore at two locations which a previous Wind Roadmap study indicated showed the best promise for wind turbine deployment – namely Orange Valley and Galeota.

The two LiDARs were deployed to measure wind data to international standards for a period of 12-18 months, under the onshore WRAP and it marked the first steps towards official wind energy deployment.

The WRAP was led by the Ministry of Energy along with implementation agency, National Energy Corporation, and supported by T&TEC. The project received support from the European Union (EU) for a consultancy to provide technical expertise for the conduct of the onshore WRAP.

At the conference, Gosine shared some preliminary results of the WRAP. She said EU experts have been reviewing the data since November. She reported that “preliminary results indicate, the wind resource at the Port of Galeota, is very good with a main wind speed of 7.8 metres per second at a height of 122 metres and reaching 8.12 meters per second at 202 metres above ground level.

"The fact that the wind is mainly blowing from the eastern direction will also be positive for the development of the future wind farms in this area.”

Gosine stressed that this was preliminary data but indicated it was very good news for the potential of wind power in TT.