Friday, November 18, 2016

St Lucia: World Bank Team Visits Island to Forward Geothermal Energy Project

Saint Lucia to host World Bank geothermal supervision mission (St Lucia News Online)

A World Bank team will be visiting Saint Lucia from November 21 to 23, 2016, to conduct an implementation support mission for the Saint Lucia Geothermal Resource Development Project.

A series of sessions have been planned from November 21 to 23, 2016 involving officials of the World Bank, Saint Lucia Electricity Services, Clean Infra partners and the Government of Saint Lucia.

The main objectives of the meetings are: to obtain an update on the current status of the project, confirm the proposed drilling programme and to determine and confirm project design as well as to discuss the prefeasibility assessment and the environmental and social aspects of the project.

The next phase of geothermal exploration operation includes the implementation of an initial exploration drilling programme and associated well testing, aimed at exploring and harnessing geothermal energy in Saint Lucia.

To this end, the World Bank Group is coordinating efforts towards the mobilization of USD15-18 million of grant and concessional funding for the Geothermal Resource Development Project, in order to reduce overall project costs on the government and the tariff to consumers.

Saint Lucia`s Geothermal Development Project is forecast to supply between 15 MW to 30 MW of base load and expected to be operational by 2023.

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