The Barbados Water Authority, with grant funding from the United Arab Emirates, is planning to undertake two major solar power projects, with the aim of reducing the Authority’s energy bill and increasing its efficiency:

BWA project engineer Nathan Harte told the media the grant would allow the state-owned utility to build two solar photovoltaic (PV) projects, the first of which would see the installation of a 500-kilowatt ground-mounted solar panel solar system at Bowmanston Pumping Station in St John.

The second project would be the building of a 350-kilowatt solar car port at the old Cave Shepherd warehouse, opposite the Bridgetown Sewage Treatment Plant.

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At the Bowmanston station, a mounted solar system would help the BWA to cut its $2 million per month energy bill and also allow the station to continue pumping water in the event of a power outage.

“In the event that the grid is down, we would still be able to pump water to our citizens,” Harte said.

“The out-rolling of these particular PV projects will see other successful projects coming online and there are also some other major PV projects we are rolling out in order to curb our high electrical demand.”

While not going into details on those future PV projects, Harte noted those future upgrades would be coming in the next two to three years.

The money for the projects was granted through the UAE’s US$50 million Caribbean Renewable Energy Fund, which was launched last January to assist Caribbean small island developing states with increasing their renewable energy sector.

Read more in the full report from the Barbados Nation News.

Previously on Green Antilles: United Arab Emirates provides funding for renewable energy development in the Caribbean.

[Image credit: Alan Levine]