Central America well suited to renewable energy, say experts

Today Central American representatives in the field of renewable energy gathered to review their progress and look at future ways of enhancing the industry. The discussions are part of the Energy and Environment Partnership with Central America’s Tenth Regional Forum on the topic. Both local and regional experts believe that renewable energy has tremendous potential, and look forward to expansion of the initiative.

Dr. Markku Narmi, President, Energy and Environment Partnership
“The financing so far is decided until 2009 and we expect that we shall continue the financing after that but we will make an international evaluation first but I think that it has been a promising project that we shall continue the cooperation for a longer period.”

Marion Ali
“What kind of support is your organization providing?”

Markku Narmi
We finance these projects. We have put seven million together from Finland in these projects and we expect to co-finance so the developer normally puts his own money also and now we also get from Austria 1.8 million.”

“When burning bagasse you can make it in more effective ways than the ways you normally done here in the sugar industry and this new project that you have here with Belize Sugar Factory of thirty-one megawatts of electricity is a very good model because they are not only using it for five, six, seven months but their intention is to produce base load all year round and that is a good thing.”

Richard Harris, Project Director, Belcogen
“We’re selling to the national grid. I think at the moment we’re seeing significant increases in the price of oil so what BELCOGEN brings is a stability of pricing. We’re using a renewable energy resource, a national renewable energy resource so there are a number of benefits in terms of foreign exchange savings, environmental improvements and providing a significant amount of additional energy into the national grid. I think Belize is experiencing a six or seven percent increase in energy demand year on year and so we’re helping to meet that gap to improve the quality and the security of energy within Belize.”

The Energy and Environment Partnership is involved with seven projects in Belize, the most recent of which is a wind and solar plant introduced last week on Calabash Caye.