An ambitious multi-million dollar renewable energy-based industrial enterprise aimed at producing a range of products and services that will target both local and overseas markets is in the process of being rolled out under the leadership of a Linden-born female Industrial Engineer.
Owner and Chief Executive officer of the Guyana Initiative Against Climate Change (GIACC) Sharon Benjamin-Fauconier told Stabroek Business in an exclusive interview on Friday that some of the earliest operational manifestations of the undertaking are expected to materialise during this year.
According to Benjamin-Fauconier, GIACC is seeking to establish a long-term, integrated industrial business powered exclusively by renewable energy and which, when operational, will provide a range of products and services that will attract both local and international markets.
GIACC will shortly begin construction of its operating base on a 503-acre plot of land bordering the Kara Kara Creek in Linden, in the vicinity of the popular mined-out pond known locally as the Blue Lake.
Apart from describing the project as her own ‘give back’ to the community, GIACC’s CEO told Stabroek Business that she believes that the company and its ventures “will fit tidily into the Guyana Green State Development Strategy” promulgated by President David Granger as a critical development rudder for the country.
A Lindener by birth, Benjamin-Fauconier is the holder of an M.B.A. from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, U.S.A., and a Bache-lor’s Degree in Industrial Engineering from Polytechnic University (now the Tandon School of Engineering of New York University). She has over 20 years of experience in industrial engineering, project management, information systems technology and business process re-engineering for energy companies. She has also held positions in major financial services and investment banking institutions in the financial centres of London, Boston and New York. She has spent the past eight years managing the testing of business applications with cross-functional global teams to address the needs of the changing marketplace and to accommodate growth.
According to Benjamin-Fauconier, in its mature state, GIACC’s industrial pursuits will provide, among other products and services, fertilisers for local and export markets, using strictly renewable energy, plus air and water as raw materials; fuel cell systems including the electronic control modules for those systems, designed and manufactured in Guyana for both export and local markets; a mass transit (bus transportation service) that will run only on hydrogen fuel cells replenished by solar and wind energy as well as cooking gas (hydrogen) for the residential market from purely renewable sources. GIACC will assign its excess energy to the local grid through a smart electronic control system. She said that the products and services that will be offered by a mature GIACC will have “a natural synergy due to their interrelationships in the production, storage and supply of clean energy.” GIACC’s products and services,” she said, “will, in the instances of its transportation and cooking gas services, prevent the emission of carbon dioxide into the air and in the instance of fertiliser manufacture, remove carbon dioxide from the air.”
Beyond carbon dioxide control, the further significant socioeconomic benefits that will accrue to Linden and to Guyana as a whole will include employment during the factory and facilities construction phases and beyond that, in the manufacturing and technical services phases of the project.
And beyond what she sees as the role of GIACC as a foreign exchange earner, Benjamin-Fauconier says that the company is mindful of the role that it can play in offering research opportunities and internships for undergraduate and graduate/postgraduate University of Guyana students in the STEM fields and apprenticeships and internships for Government Technical Institute technical/vocational students. She is, she says, also mindful of the timeliness of the emergence of GIACC given Guyana’s imminent entry into the global green economy.
Besides its business-focussed pursuits Benjamin-Fauconier told Stabroek Business that GIACC was equally concerned with the non-profit, “giveback” dimension which it seeks to extend to the Linden community. These she says, will include the GIACC Community Learning Laboratory, which is targeted for opening at the end of 2019 and which she says will be open to primary and secondary school students, who will be allocated scheduled time during which they will be able to access equipment to conduct individual and group experiments. “In its startup phase the laboratory’s equipment set will centre on the STEM disciplines of physics, electronics and mechatronics, the blending of electronics and mechanical systems, which includes robotics”.
Over the years, the Blue Lake area, part of the area for which the GIACC holds a lease for its operations, has become a popular location for entertainment in Linden and Benjamin-Fauconier told Stabroek Business that she was concerned that those activities appeared to take little if any account of environmental considerations. Her concern, she says, centres on the incompatibility between the GIACC’s pursuits and the seeming absence of the importance of prudent environmental management in the Blue Lake area at this time. She says, however, that in keeping with her commitment to partnering with the community in pursuit of the company’s objectives, she is amenable to developing the immediate Blue Lake areas near the pond into a “leisure space” which she says, GIACC will structure and will operate “in keeping with the green energy theme of its business.”
The CEO told Stabroek Business that she was aware that compared with the fossil fuel industry, the renewable energy sector is still in its fledgling state in Guyana, resulting in high costs for turnkey clean energy systems. “GIACC has been quietly pursuing research on key parts of its own technology overseas, and is now in a position to bring operations to Guyana this year. We have utilised the services of doctoral level chemical, mechanical and electrical engineers, including members of the Caribbean diaspora and we expect to bring some of that type of work to Guyana, along with the training in order to get the work done.”
“Each of the initiatives being undertaken by GIACC will begin with an appropriate pilot endeavour, followed by a scaled-up effort in succeeding years. GIACC intends to be in renewable energy in Guyana for the long haul,” the company’s CEO added.
