Commissioning of Dominica's Geothermal Plant Nearing Completion: Vince Henderson

Dominica: Energy Minister Dr. Vince Henderson revealed that commissioning of the geothermal energy plant was nearing completion. Speaking on the Legal Affairs programme, he said development of the project had reached an encouraging stage.

He said that he received a report on 23 July from Fred John that they have evaluated relevant parameters, the temperature, and the power coming out. They have ensured that everything is within required specs. Now, within the next few days the plant will be commissioned and it will be ready for operations under the terms and conditions of the Power Purchase Agreement with Dominic.

He reassured the citizens that although the target date has moved many times, July 31st will most likely be the date on which the plant would be completed.

He further said the project has been a valuable learning experience for Dominica and has helped strengthen parts of the country's electricity network.

Dr Henderson says the operation of the geothermal energy plant is mainly managed by Dominican employees.

“Our geothermal plants, there are 28 employees, 26 of them are Dominicans,” he said. Young graduates from State College, technicians, and engineers have been working with Dominic for several years. He also said that youngsters are the ones carrying the work and some of them were sent to get training in Guatemala. They learned about the servicing of the plant and got a better knowledge of how it works.

Dr Henderson also mentioned that a team previously went to Brazil with the Indian company, KPI, to understand how they operate the transmission network, so that they can have more experience on this.

The Energy Minister said that Dominicans should be proud of the geothermal energy initiative.

“This is one achievement for Dominica that we can be proud of, every one of us, because we have, I mean admittedly, we have not been first in a lot of things, but we can say this is something that we’ve done well and we can lead the way, we can teach, we can share, we can speak of our experiences and it’s catching people’s attention,” he said.

He then explained about the meeting that is going to be held next month as everybody wants to hear about Dominica. He said that he has gotten a request for Panama City once again as people want to know how Dominica was able to achieve this milestone.