Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Climate Resilience Execution Agency for Dominica (CREAD), Francine Baron said a framework agreement signed on Wednesday, which proposes to develop a project in one of Dominica’s six geothermal zones, will involve the construction of a hydrogen production facility which could produce 27 to 30,000 tons of hydrogen per year and 240 to 250,000 of oxygen per year.
The framework agreement was signed between the Government of Dominica, Kenesjay Green Limited (KGL), and Dominica Geothermal Development Company (DGDC) during the first Hydrogen Summit being held as part of the 15th Caribbean Renewable Energy Forum in Miami, Florida.
Kenesjay Green is a private sector indigenous company in Trinidad and Tobago committed to developing a pipeline of green decarbonizing projects for the region. It started with NewGen and it’s continuing with Dominica.
“The northern geothermal zone near Portsmouth will see the construction of a Geothermal Plant with a 200-250 megawatts capacity,” she said. “It will involve the construction of a hydrogen production facility which could produce 27 to 30,000 tons of hydrogen per year and 240 to 250,000 of oxygen per year.”
According to Baron, to realize the opportunity with this and other geothermal zones throughout the island the government is undertaking swift and urgent action to ensure that the country realizes the objective of green hydrogen industrialization within a 5-year period.
“The implementation of this will be characterized by enhanced environmental and social governance considerations, embracing key concepts of industrial ecology and secular economy, minimizing environmental impact, efficient resource utilization, and improving participation of the citizenry in its economic development program,” she noted.
She pointed out that this will include the development of a cluster of new technical skills, capacity development for existing institutions, and improving policies, laws, and structures to support good governance and enforcement.
Baron believes that Dominica has the transformative opportunity to become a green hydrogen producer by tapping into renewable energy potential and exporting to countries with a high demand for green hydrogen.
“In essence, Dominica can serve as an industrial centre for renewable power generation, hydrogen production, and even further along the value chain into the petrochemical sectors including ammonia, methanol, and e-fuels,” she explained.
Furthermore, she stated that the concept of a green industrial eco-park has been globally accepted as an attractive, sustainable industrial development park pathway.
“A green industrial eco-park that integrates green hydrogen as part of its development framework can contribute significantly to the future sustainable development of our country,” Baron stated. “Such benefits will extend from direct foreign investment, to job creation, improvement in infrastructure, and the opportunity for foreign exchange earnings through the sale of commodities.”
Minister for Finance, Dr. Irving McIntyre who delivered his remarks virtually said this agreement is one of the primary pillars of Dominica’s green industrial program, “and our transition to a low carbon economy.”
“We are confident that this transformation will advance the economic national well-being, while at the same time contributing significantly to the national goal articulated by our Prime Minister in making Dominica the first climate resilient nation in the world,” he said.
According to Dr. McIntyre, the realization of this program has the potential for Dominica’s integration into a regional and international green energy value chain realizing the supply of green energy commodities to the region and other parts of the world where such demand exists.
“Dominica, a country with one of the largest geothermal resources in the Caribbean, has the potential to develop a global, competitive, green hydrogen industry,” he said. “This signing today now unlocks the pathway towards further development that is expected to lead to a bankable value proposition for Dominica, allowing for the leveraging of its geothermal power to develop a scalable green hydrogen industry.”
Meanwhile, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Kenesjay Green Limited, Philip Julien believes that this project, once successfully interconnected, can lead to one of the largest hubs for renewable energy and green hydrogen globally.
“We see the signing of this framework agreement as one step closer towards that vision and we are pleased and honored to be part of this exciting public-private partnership with the Government of Dominica,” he said.
Julien pointed out that in the Caribbean region as said before, there is the very real potential for surplus and tap green energy in countries such as Dominica.
“This regional energy green potential is not just constrained to Dominica and is not just constrained to geothermal,” he said.
He continued, “Green hydrogen, green ammonia, green methanol whether for Trinidad or for Thailand is a real global game changer.”
He went on to state that the renewable market potential, “which many of you have been looking for, is now here waiting to be explored…and waiting to be realized .”
“This is what Dominica is taking the next step in today,” Julien indicated. “Today marks the day that transitions us from that initial phase of a government policy, Dominica’s government policy of setting targets and establishing the requisite public-private partnerships such as the one announced here today.”
https://youtu.be/_w6bCEbReu8
They had better say far from Laudat with this one.
Because villagers facing too much with the Geothermal monstrosity the are building now plus the land grab and madness of the tram project.
Any further industrial activity in this ‘once paradise’ will sink the village for sure.
Water, land, and air under attack! Noise, dust, smell. Alas!!
Geothermal truckers even bringing their stray dogs they don’t want any more (from as far as the East of Dominica) and letting them loose in our village to kill our sheep.
We cannot take no more!
Let’s start with the basics – a proper island wide sanitation system that reduces water pollution.
Allyou give people places to stay and those people have to be asking people overseas to help them pay their water and light bill,,,
Allyou doh have a proper electric grid much more for the reliable and sustainable power system in place,,,
Every time rain fall allyou have to shut down the water system,,,
Allyou doh have a proper mechanism to deal with sewage waste!!!
Allyou doh have a proper transportation sector and Road infrastructure,,,
But allyou want to be ambitious in venturing into some sectors of exploration allyou cannot even explain to properly,,,
What is wrong wiff allyou Educated Fools nuh!!!
Garcan go and figure out allyou @SS from allyou elbows before allyou come telling people about hydrogen bizniss yeh,,,
And answer this: “What is this huge concrete structure those Chinaman Dem building at OneMile in Portsmouth”???
Why allyou doh go focus on taking back our Agriculture sector from dem Chinaman before allyou look into Geothermal and…
Very well spoken. Right on!
I like the sound of this, Baron! Great things.
When those Chinese finish with you all they will be renting living spaces for you and your children. Keep playing with Chinese. This week they are destructively engaged at sea with the Philippines. They want Taiwan, the Philippines, half of the continent of Africa, they have had Jamaica for a long time. Now, what are they missing to have Dominica? They are building and building and building. Skerrit must be stopped.
Wow, we have not heard from this one in a while. All of a sudden she crawls from under the rock and tries to justify her existence. An existence by the way, that costs the state coffers a lot of money!
Oh, oh, I doe know what this is, I better Google hydrogen production to see what I find out, I’ll be back with an opinion. Hopefully it’s the aim is genuine and not to one-up or sideline the opposition.
So you guys gonna build a hydrogen plant the size of Portsmouth ( yes the plants are that size including storage ) in a country that’s in the path of hurricanes . In a country that’s supposed to be the nature island of the Caribbean.
So your idea is to destroy a huge bit of that nature . Run pipelines to facilities on island. Then have huge oil burning ships visit the island regularly. Not to mention the new port that will have to be built to accommodate them ( no dca has NO ports that can currently handle hydrogen export or storage.
You all does just ramble on about crap and do absolutely no research on it and then come wave it all over the place and have people believe u all actually have a clue.
Come on
Here we go. That’s the government of Dominica and attached Cabal for you. I wonder if any of them know what hydrogen is and what it’s production entails.
You should do like “Who Knows” and first research the subject before commenting. SMFH!
Huge oil burning ships already visit the island regularly, and hydrogen plants can vary in size. There are even systems used by houses with solar power that electrolysise hydrogen as a storage medium in lieu of lithium batteries. You’re describing challenges to overcome, but none of them sound like inherent show stoppers.
You are well known for sitting high on the fence when it comes to everything government or Skerrit.