It wasn’t just Hawaii’s sun and sand that were familiar to Gary Jackson when the head of the Caribbean Electric Utility Services Corp. visited Honolulu last week for a renewable energy conference.
In his presentation at the Asia Pacific Clean Energy Summit and Expo, Jackson noted that many of the issues Hawaii is grappling with on the energy front are things he deals with on a daily basis back home: dependence on oil for power generation, high-priced electricity, and a push to integrate more renewable resources into the energy mix.
And like Hawaii, the Caribbean has access to an abundance of renewable energy sources, including wind, solar, geothermal and biomass.
The parallels don’t stop there, Jackson said. The 33 utilities that are members of his association are pushing forward with plans to connect the islands with an undersea transmission cable along the lines of what the state and Hawaiian Electric Co. are pursuing.
Jackson cited the example of geothermal energy, which could be transmitted via an undersea cable from less populated, resource-rich areas of the Caribbean to areas with greater demand.
“If geothermal exceeds the demand of a particular country that has the resource, then it would be in the best interest of that country to look at it in a larger sense and export some that energy to other islands,” Jackson said.
A preliminary study has shown that an undersea transmission cable connecting the Caribbean islands is feasible, with the exception of some of the deeper channels with depths greater than 7,200 feet, said Hugo Hodge, chief executive officer of the Virgin Island Water and Power Authority. The deepest spot between the main Hawaiian Islands is 6,100 feet in the channel between Hawaii island and Maui.
The first leg of the cable would connect Puerto Rico with St. Thomas, St. John and St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Hodge said. Future legs would head south to the Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis, which has geothermal resources, he said.
The U.S. Virgin Islands has just started promoting solar energy in response to the country’s high energy costs, Hodge said. The country’s goal is to reduce use of fossil fuel by 60 percent by 2025.
“We have a lot of similarities with Hawaii, but there are some differences, too,” Hodge said.
