Dr Vincent Lawrence yesterday said that, except for the Jamalco facility, all the energy projects that the Electricity Sector Enterprise Team (ESET) have been monitoring have now been implemented.

Giving an update on the various projects at a press briefing at Jamaica House, Dr Lawrence, the ESET chairman, noted that the proposal for Jamalco,which was initially supposed to produce 50 megawatts through coal-fired generation, has been replaced by plans to develop an expandable 100-MW, natural, gas-fired, cogeneration plant which is more environmentally friendly. He said this will provide low-cost power to the national grid at a capital cost of US$160 million by December 2018.

Cabinet approved the project on Monday.

“It’s an upgrade on what we had,” Dr Lawrence said.

The plant is to be constructed by New Fortress Energy (NFE), which is also the developer for the Jamaica Public Service’s (JPS) 190-MW, gas-fired, base-load generating facility at Old Harbour, St Catherine, as well as the JPS’s Bogue plant retrofitting project in Montego Bay.

“In our generation expansion plan, we saw where we would need an additional 80 megawatts of power by 2020, so the additional 44 to 50 megawatts that this (Jamalco) plant will supply fell well within that 80 megawatts, and we felt it would make sense,” Dr Lawrence explained.

Cabinet also, on Monday, gave the nod for the Chinese-owned Pan Caribbean Sugar Company to reduce the supply of energy from bagasse produced at its Frome factory from 11 to eight months out of each year. “Once they started to negotiate this power purchase agreement they felt they would not have adequate bagasse to supply power for 11 months, so they would have to use one of the liquid fuels to generate for the extra period, which would be a cost to them – and we know what has been happening in the sugar industry,” he explained.

Pan Caribbean is now expected to resume negotiations with the JPS.

The Government recently said that it will be taking over Pan Caribbean’s operations for a year. This is after it failed to woo investors for the company, whose principals had indicated that operations could cease this month due to growing losses. It is unclear how the takeover dovetails into Pan Caribbean’s plans for energy generation.

In the meantime, the JPS’s 190-MW project is set for completion by the second quarter of 2018; and the 120-MW Bogue plant retrofitting project to convert gas turbines to dual fuel is awaiting the gas supply from NFE. This operation should be up within another three months, according to the ESET.

At the same time, the ESET chairman said trying to raise the US$206 million in debt-funding for the JPS plant internationally has resulted in delays in meeting the financial closing by May 2016, as was anticipated.

He said the focus has since shifted to the local financial market and that $170 million of what is required is fully confirmed and committed.

“There are indications and agreements with financial institutions (to close the balance),” he outlined.

ESET was set up to lead and manage the procurement process for the development of additional baseload generation capacity, in order to significantly reduce the cost of electricity to consumers and diversify in the country’s fuel supply. It operates in consultation with the Office of Utilities Regulation; the JPS; and the Ministry of Science, Technology, Energy and Mining.