Acting Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Energy and Business, Kevin Hunte and UNDP Resident Representative for Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean, Limya Eltayeb, sign the documents for the SMARTER Project while Minister of Energy and Business, Senator Lisa Cummins, looks on. (C. Pitt/BGIS)
The Sustainable Management and Resilient Thinking for our Evolution (SMARTER) Project has been launched to create the opportunity for biogas to be used, for a bioenergy economy, for fuel economy to be used for transportation, and for heating and energy electricity production.
Minister of Energy and Business, Senator Lisa Cummins, made this assertion at the signing of the project document for the SMARTER Project, at her Ministry, at the Trinity Business Centre, Country Road, St. Michael, on Wednesday.
The project, which is funded by the Global Environment Facility, signifies a strategic step towards Government’s goal of achieving 100 per cent renewable energy by 2030.
According to Minister Cummins, energy transitioning often correlates with renewable energy and because Barbados has had such a proliferation of solar PV, it is very important to clarify that renewable energy is not only solar PV.
“Transitioning to renewable sources of energy is not just of old solar panels…and when we talk about the energy mix in Barbados it means that we’re talking about how do we transition from fossil fuels to all the different types of technology that may be fit for purpose for Barbados.
“So, when we talk about solar PV, we’d think about solar PV largely because there is the sun, but the sun, or the purpose of solar PV is only valuable for about four hours in the day. It is what we describe as an intermittent source of energy. If we’re only able to capture the sun for four hours of the day it means that solar PV must always be accompanied by storage technologies – batteries,” she explained.
Senator Cummins stressed that the technology for solar PV is important and outlined that the Energy Ministry is looking at the overall natural energy policy, the national energy transition plan, and the integrated resource and resilience plan to find ways to diversify the island’s ‘energy mix’, to make sure that Barbados is able to bring new forms of technology into the country.
“The creation of a bio-energy economy is a critical part of that policy coherence that the Ministry of Energy is pursuing, and so we’re happy to have a number of partners – the agricultural sector – they are very much a critical part of the process in terms of agricultural waste-to-energy overall but also the rum industry; we have seen the rum by-products.”
The Energy Minister listed a few of the contributors to be involved in the project. They are Ministry of Agriculture, Mount Gay Rum Distilleries, West India Rum Distillery, National Petroleum Corporation, and Barbados National Oil Company
She added that “our resilience, transitioning to new forms of renewable energy, must be multi-dimensional”. She stated that it must continue to integrate solar and wind and it must look at how Barbados, together with other types of technologies, like bioenergy, can contribute to a new energy resilient economy.
The Minister explained that the connection to the agricultural economy creates an opportunity for not just an energy transition, but also the creation of new jobs, training in the areas of skills and capacity building, and new opportunities not just for Barbados, but for export.
“Barbados can lead…. We can be first in particular on matters relating to energy where we are matching ambition with implementation…. The Rum and Sargassum Project is an example of that. So, if you were to take that as an example and scale that up all across the region where our circumstances are very similar, it creates an opportunity for regional energy integration, which also is a part of our regional conversation.
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Resident Representative for Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean, Limya Eltayeb, expressed her delight in not just having the launch of the first project between Barbados and UNDP, but referenced the collaboration as “the sort of project that is at the intersection of so many important issues”.
According to Ms. Eltayeb, the bio-energy SMARTER Project is not just about sustainable energy, but also comprises the following:
- energy and renewable energy beyond the traditional;
- finding new alternative solutions to fossil fuel which does harm to both the environment and the national budget of Barbados;
- discovering new ways of working that will make a dent on the possible fuel costs;
- identifying ways that will make a dent on the Barbados Nationally Determined Contributions to the climate action, climate change and the Paris Agreement.
She indicated that the project provides the opportunity to work with farmers on sustainability and bio-energy.
“The project is about using organic waste and agricultural by-products as a new form of alternative energy, not new globally, but as a new addition to the energy mix of Barbados…. Anybody who’s in the agriculture value chain has an opportunity to be part of the energy transition, so it’s not just spoken about at this level but really bringing it down to our everyday lives.”
The UNDP Representative also stated that this collaboration, once achieved correctly, has the potential to create regional and sub-regional collaboration on how organic waste and agriculture by-products are used.
She pointed out that among the benefits are a chance for job creation and innovation because the project will be in the pilot phase and out of that phase one of the pilots will be able to be scaled up into a demonstration that can be used.
“So, not only are we working on that level in terms of this bio-energy project; we’re also contributing to the Barbados [climate] ambition,” she added.