India open to assisting Barbados’ renewable energy efforts

By Dawne Parris – In India

A leading global think tank in energy, environment and sustainable development could be offering Barbados a hand in its efforts to tackle climate change and reduce energy costs.

After seeing success with its efforts in Guyana, where it has worked with both the government and private sector firms to help reduce energy costs and implement innovative, efficient emission reduction practices, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) is exploring how it can assist the rest of the region in that regard.

Director General Dr Vibha Dhawan said while it is still early days, her organisation has keen interest in replicating efforts in other Caribbean Community (CARICOM) nations to reap similar success.
Speaking at TERI’s headquarters in New Delhi on Monday, she said India’s Ambassador in Guyana had made the request.

“I have just said ‘yes, we are open to it’ so, therefore, we still have to make those connections,” she told a group of 35 senior journalists and editors from 17 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean who are in India on an official media tour as guests of the government.

“What we have done in Guyana is largely in studies on use of renewable energy as well as use of animal fertiliser. So what we would like to do in those countries is the areas in which TERI has worked on sustainable development, we feel will help those countries as well, including climate change adaptation, mitigation strategies and so on.”

TERI, over the last decade, has collaborated with several entities in the private and public sectors in Guyana to reduce their energy consumption significantly. TERI supported the first gasifier power project on the Essequibo Coast in 2014. Rice husk was used as fuel, and the gases emitted from the gasifier were cleaned of solid particles, tar/carbon and water/moisture, and directed into the combustion chambers of a 250 kW power generating set, replacing 70 per cent of the diesel required to run the generating set.

Last year, two Guyanese companies, Durable Wood Products Inc. (DWP) and EMC Energy Inc, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with TERI to implement a 1.5 MW wood waste-based power generation.
(DP)