Barbados’ first commercial wind energy farm will be in full swing in a matter of weeks.
Pavana Energy Ltd., the first company to be granted a licence to erect wind turbines here, is putting the final touches on the one-megawatt wind farm located on approximately 10 acres at Ashford Dairy Farm in Guinea, St John, according to Chief Executive Officer Donnie Prescott.
The project consists of four 250-kilowatt Vergnet wind turbines and is expected to produce enough electricity that could power in excess of 1,200 households.
Prescott gave Barbados TODAY insight into the progress of the project that has been in planning for close to a decade but began around mid-March last year.
“At this point now, we are on track for it to be commissioned. Commissioning will take about four weeks. We are still waiting on one or two shipments but we should be on track once everything comes into play, by mid- to the end of November,” said Prescott, who declined to disclose the level of investment in the project at this stage.
Donnie Prescott
“We had delays in the shipping of materials and so on. So that delayed us. We really would have liked for it to be commissioned since January this year, but due to the [COVID-19] pandemic, shipping and then the war [in Ukraine], the shipping has been a nightmare; getting materials has been a nightmare.”
Prescott said despite a lot of “back and forth”, meetings and transfer of information, the process which involved Barbados Light and Power Company (BLPC) and the relevant government departments was a relatively smooth one.
“We are now getting to the point where we will be getting connection to the grid so we can complete the commissioning. So, that process has started and they [BLPC] have come and done some work on the pole already,” he said.
Jobs for more than 20 people were created at various stages of the project, the official disclosed.
Prescott said the Pavana team was keen on taking on the challenge of trying something that has never been done in Barbados on such a large scale, as he noted that wind energy was one of the main ways the island could reach its 2030 target of becoming carbon neutral.
“Everybody else is doing solar and we need to be different and we want to try something else. The wind is interesting and it is also more challenging than solar. In order to be fossil fuel free by 2030 or 2035, we can’t do it with all solar. We need a mix,” he said.
The wind turbines are to be raised in the coming weeks.
Once wind speed reaches about 3 metres per second, the turbines will start to spin, generating some 400 volts of alternating current (AC) that is then transmitted to the transformer and is increased to 11,000 kilovolts at the base. This is then transferred to the on-site substation before reaching the national grid.
Prescott explained that the turbines can be lowered in the event of a storm and raised once the weather has improved. Once strapped down, they can withstand up to a Category 4 hurricane.
“The project is supposed to be a resilient project. So, in the event of a hurricane, we are able to turn up and operate the next day provided that the grid is still up and operational,” he said.
Prescott said there should be no worry about noise from the approximately 50-foot-long blades atop the 55-metre-high wind turbines since they were insulated to minimise any mechanical noise and the site was some 350 metres from the nearest residential district.
The project is being carried out at the more than 100-acre Ashford Dairy Farm through a lease arrangement that will allow cattle grazing to continue on the land.
Authorities are anticipating that the island’s renewable energy landscape will consist of roughly 410 to 435 megawatts of solar photovoltaic systems, 150 megawatts of offshore wind energy, 150 megawatts of onshore wind energy, and 15 megawatts of biomass.
