Dominica has the potential to generate over 300 megawatts of power to totally eliminate fuel surcharge, according to Minister for Energy, Dr. Vince Henderson.
Dr. Henderson made the announcement during Parliament this week.
“We are standing on one of the largest reservoirs of geothermal power anywhere in the Eastern Caribbean,” he said. “We have the potential of over 300 megawatts of power, so this little 150 we are talking about Kilowatt-hour and so forth we can generate that ourselves.”
According to Dr. Henderson, the government has to make the investment.
“Yes, it’s a massive investment, but once we have made that investment we do not have to worry about fuel surcharge,” he said.“We can totally eliminate fuel surcharge on our bills when we get geothermal fully online and that is what we are working to.”
Furthermore, he explained that after government makes significant investments it has seen its way and is getting to the point where, “soon we will be finalizing an agreement for the actual construction of our power plant and that will ensure that we no longer have to carry or to come to Parliament for any passage of legislation that has to worry about fuel surcharge.”
Dr. Henderson indicated that there will be enough hydropower which does not attract a fuel surcharge.
“And that is why we are seeing our bills going down because DOMLEC, we have to thank them, they have brought the remaining hydropower plants online and that has drastically reduced our fuel surcharge, but of course, we are looking forward in the next two years when we have geothermal power,” he stated.
Meanwhile, during a press briefing recently, Dr. Henderson disclosed that the government has invested over $20 million in the Roseau valley.
He said the roads to Laudat were also improved at an investment of about $2.5 million to ensure that the equipment doing the drilling would have easy access to Laudat.
He went on to state that in October of this year, the drilling rig from Iceland Drilling was brought to Dominica.
“It’s about 100 feet, it’s huge. It’s a massive structure with their own generation capacity of about 4 megawatts, that’s almost 30 percent of what all of us consume in Dominica,” Dr. Henderson explained. “So that’s a huge undertaking.”
Furthermore, he said drilling is taking place in the Roseau Valley.
“We have completed the drilling of one well, that is one production well, that is where the steam comes up and that is the steam that will be used to power the turbine to provide electricity,” he noted.
He revealed that there have been excellent results from the first well so far.
“We have the temperature, the pressure, the permeability, all the things that we are looking for,” he noted. “It seems to be as good as one of the other wells that we have already in Laudat, so that hopefully will give us another 10 megawatts of power.”
Dr. Henderson also revealed that a reinjection well is being drilled.
“That is the well that is used to put all the stuff that comes out back into the system, so we do not send anything out of the environment,” he explained. “We are preparing the site for that.”
He revealed that the contract is being done by Ace Engineering to the tune of about $3 million (USD).
“We have some recent cost overrun because of the nature and type of the soil in that area, but the work should be completed in the second well by the end of February, and by March we will be drilling the new reinjection well,” he explained. “That investment, the drilling part, is about US $16 million (USD) …”
Dr. Henderson pointed out that the next stage is to construct the plant.
In addition to that, he said the government is embarking on the construction of new transmission lines which will be done from the Roseau Valley, Laudat in particular to carry all the geothermal power and hydropower in the Roseau Valley to Fond Cole.
“That is about a 10km run, it is a significant investment, but funds have already been secured from the World Bank to cover that investment,” Dr. Henderson said.
He expressed hopes that by April the government would have concluded all the drilling and would then move quickly into the construction of the power plant.
Negotiations with a developer on the construction of the power plant began on Friday, February 3.
Let’s just concentrate on first getting 20MW up and running from the wells already drilled!
If they are fully successful, then, by all means, think about moving on to tap yet more.
Can someone tell us how Vince get his doctorate???
Sometimes when RastarMarn read what mistadem say and how mistadem talk leaves RastarMarn Speechless wondering what school mistadem go to and where dem people dat took their tests for dem yeh,,,
Garçan how you going to produce 300 megawatts of power just from some steam escaping out of the ground!!!
On what power distribution grid allyou going to distribute dat 300 Megawatt,,,
Garçon allyou dohtish and allyou always coming and let the world know allyou doh know allyou @$$ from allyou elbow,,,
Garçan allyou still cannot get the steam out of the ground in a controlled pattern allyou coming and make people believe allyou find a Pot of Gold at the end of that rainbow,,,
Henderson, why do you insist nowadays to make a complete fool of yourself. Shame on you!
What those haters,crooks,traitors and vagabonds should do is write to Iceland,the World bank and Ace Engineering and tell them do not take part in Dominica’s geothermal project.The same way the aholes went to the UN and told them do not help Dominica because Skerrit was committing crimes against humanity. Today these very same shameless aholes are talking about “our country”
You have some severe mental health issues. I’ll leave it at that.
Why is the government involved in providing energy? Give a contract to a private company and hold them to deadlines and if they don’t meet those deadlines impose fines. Let the company give updates as to the progress, not Vince and Skerritt. Labour support is being eroded because of all the unfulfilled promises. I was one of those labour supporters.
Eliminate fuel surcharge and drastically decrease the cost per unit on our bills. If we stand to generate far more power than the country uses, and sell the rest as was discussed more than several months ago, then this should be reflected in the monthly bill to the customer. We should then have the cheapest electricity tarrifs in the region once it’s up and running, not the 3rd highest in the world.
I wonder when is “I run things” going to start on the nuclear plant or the space ship. Just listening to his stuttering “am am am am am am am am is geothermal to me. I thought he was about to have a heart attack.
So only the surcharge is going to go down,I though years ago they said our basic charge would be cut in half. These people are a big set of thiefs.
Minister Henderson is too modest. Dominica can easily produce 400 to 500 MG watts of power from geothermal sources. Our aim should be limited to just reducing the cost of electricity, but to completely eliminate the use of all fossil fuels on the island. With sufficient low-cost electricity on hand, we should be moving to be the major producer of green hydrogen in the Caribbean. We would then use hydrogen to power our fleet of motor vehicles, either by putting the hydrogen directly into a modified Internal combustion engine or by using the hydrogen to produce electricity in a fuel cell to power an electric motor in EV’s. On the domestic side, we would ditch gas stoves and move completely to electric stoves for cooking. Additionally, as the world pivots to fusion power the demand for green hydrogen is expected to skyrocket. We should be planning how we enter that market. In short, the utilization of the geothermal resource has the potential to completely revolutionize our economy .
Geothermal energy in Dominica and fowl sporting teeth will happen on the same date.
Oh my….another Flintstone…..when will geothermal b available for us dominican? When will the international Airport be functional? When will the cable overhead cart be functional? When will the cruise ships be in canefield ? Oh waste of time for those lazy politicians…..awarding those lazy one to be in office after they lost election…. oh what a country?
They have been blowing hot steam on the mountain for over 20 years and still no electricity, where did all the money go?
You know that’s a lot of technical info that the ordinary Joe blow doesn’t understand.
300 megawatts of power is highly over ambitious! All you and skerrit see is more money more money……….overuns due to nature of soil type Vince?
Didn’t you do some assessment of the soil type prior to digging?????!!!!!!!
That’s a jumbie in a bag…….come better than that!!!!!!!
That kind of technical info is not forthcoming regarding the international Airport though!
There will be no international airport in Dominica. If AA cannot fill a 76 seater Embraer from Miami, who is going to fly a B737 from NY, or a B777 long haul from Europe into Dominica?
Yours truly the illustrious PM will be landing next week from France piloting a B777.
Go began the talk. Give the people a precise delivery date (day /month/year) for this grandiose undertaking. This geothermal project has had a gestation period of over ten (10) years and counting.
Roosevelt and his gang of ravenous wolves have taken too much from the people’s purse and deliver too little. They have promised so many awesome investments and hardly any has come to fruition. This conniving regime has a supercolossal problem of deficit implementation.
Saying is a different thing from doing. Actions speak much louder than words, and are more to be regarded. Every huge project ( airport, geothermal energy, new universities, electoral reform, cruise ship port, and village, Roseau revitalization) et cetera, all are eternally stuck in a pipeline.
All present and former members of the Roosevelt’s blasphemous concoction of a government have hamstring progress in the country while decorating their egos with sweet sounding lies.
This is all old news man. We heard it already 5 years ago and most recently a year ago. Stop talking! Incompetence and corruption wherever one looks.
I hope it’s not only the fuel surcharge that’s expected to go down. Even with the hydro power online we still have one of the highest electricity rates in the Caribbean. We need competitive rates to ease the burden on our people and make Dominica a more attractive place to do business.
The administation replacing this corrupt DLP regime, must, with dispatch, launch a Commission of Inquiry, into this project from its very beginning, to find out what has absorbed so much of our scarce money resources, with no result in sight.
Something is not right!!!
I think all the hot air spoken by these people over the last ten years of project inertia should provide enough energy for the region.
Exactly, talk and hot air, that’s all they produce.
So far, a lot of hot air from a smelly hole.