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Govt blames lack of $$$ for slow move to renewable energy
Kaieteur News- Prime Minister Brigadier (Ret’d) Mark Phillips on Monday explained that the lack of financing resulted in only 5% of the country’s energy needs being generated by renewables.
Prime Minister Brigadier (Ret’d), Mark Phillips (Govt blames lack of $$$)
The PM was at the time responding to a question at his end-of-year press conference, hosted at the Arthur Chung Conference Center. He said, “It’s just about 5% of our energy needs, at this point as I speak but that is gonna increase tremendously over the next year- 2025/2026- and definitely 2025/2030 because we have three utility scale solar energy projects. We’ve already signed contracts for the construction of solar farms in Berbice and Essequibo and soon we will be signing for a 15MW solar farm in Region 10.”
In addition to that, he cited government’s plans for the 165 MW Amaila Falls Hydo project. Evaluation of bids for the hydro project is ongoing, according to him, which will see construction occurring during the next five years.
As such, he assured that Guyana will be increasing its generation of energy from renewable sources.
Although it has been the intention of government to increase the nation’s supply of renewable energy, access to finance has resulted in only 5% being generated by these sources.
“The government always has an intention of doing more but you know everything has to be financed. You need to have money or some source of money in terms of lending or borrowing to finance those projects. We are in a stage now where we have an increase in revenue from the oil stream and as we promised the people of Guyana, we will utilize this increased revenue to improve the lives and livelihoods of people,” Phillips noted.
To achieve the improvement he referenced, the PM explained the government will need to ensure citizens are more resilient in the face of climate change. Throughout the world, Phillips said it is known that investing in renewable energy is part of the plan. With more resources now available to the GoG, he assured, “We will utilize the resources to have greater usage of renewable energy.”
Chart showing the huge decline in the cost to generate electricity using solar and other renewable options (Source: UNDP 2022 Report)
Presently, the government is investing over US$2B to deliver cleaner and more reliable energy, through the Gas-to-Energy project. It was explained that the use of gas, compared to Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO) will significantly reduce emissions and provide a more reliable source of power.
While the Prime Minister cited access to financing as a barrier to increasing the country’s renewable electricity generation, reports have shown that over the past 10 years, the cost of renewable energy has decreased significantly.
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in its 2022 Report titled: “Uncertain Times, Unsettled Lives: Shaping our Future in a Transforming World”, stated that power generation through solar has become far cheaper than which is being reported.
The organisation explained, “Contrary to the projected average annual cost reduction of 2.6 percent between 2010 and 2020, solar photovoltaics costs declined by 15 percent a year over the same period.” This means that the price of electricity from solar declined by 89 percent in these 10 years. The UNDP used a chart to depict the massive declines in which it explained that in 2010, the cost to generate one megawatt (MW) of power moved from US$359 in 2009 to just US$40 in 2019. Not only that, but this means solar power generation also proved to be cheaper in comparison to at least two other clean energy options – gas and wind. Despite both wind and gas power also recording a decline in cost to generate, the report maintained solar is the cheapest option.
(Govt blames lack of $$$ for slow move to renewable energy )
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