The Hope, East Coast Demerara Wind Farm project is one step closer to being realised, after the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) received an application for environmental authorisation for the project.
This pronouncement was made via an advertisement from the EPA in Sunday’s edition of the Guyana Chronicle.
The ad related that the Hope Energy Development Inc. has since submitted an application to the agency to construct and operate the Hope Beach Wind Farm at Hope Beach on the East Coast of Demerara and that it is a proposed sustainable utility scale renewable energy project.
The proposed wind farm is slated to generate over 50GWh of electricity per year that will be delivered to the Guyana Power and Light’s (GPL) grid and will provide an alternative to Guyana’s reliance on fossil fuels for power generation, and its associated emission of carbon dioxide and other pollutants.
The ad related that the development of the wind farms will involve topographic surveying, land clearing, excavation and leveling of soil, construction of the site road and wind turbine foundations, movement and compaction of soil, transportation and use of raw materials and the laying of buried voltage collector cables, among others.
It added that the activities have the potential to degrade the land and result in emissions and discharges to air and surrounding water bodies.
“However, prevention of impacts is a priority, however, where this cannot be achieved, appropriate mitigation and pollution abatement measures will be put in place to minimise environmental practices,” the EPA said.
In keeping with the Environmental Protection Act Chapter 20:05, an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is required for the project before any decision to either approve or reject it, since its development may have significant impacts on the environment.
As a result, members of the public are invited, within 28 days of the notice, to make written submissions to the Agency, setting out questions and matters they require to be answered or considered as part of the EIA.
Comments can be addressed to the EPA’s Executive Director on Ganges Street, Sophia or sent to epa@epaguyana.org.
In 2015, the government had approved the detailed examination of a proposal by the GWF for a 26-megwatt wind energy plant on the East Coast of Demerara.
However, Lloyd Singh, one of the investors from the Guyana Wind Farm Inc. (GWF), had explained that the project was forced to scale down from its initial 26-megwatts to about 13Mw, because of the Hope Canal and Hope Primary School, which has been built around the demarcated area for the project.
“The project must be environmentally safe in terms of noise, shadow flicking and we are now working those out to see the size of the turbines and the government how much electricity they will purchase form us,” he had said.
He had also pointed out that the substation at Coldingen was only capable of taking about 10Mw, and as a result, power would have to be distributed directly to the Sophia Substations, which would be an additional cost.
On signing the Power Purchase Agreement, Singh said that the project will take approximately nine months to complete. “My only concern is that if we want green energy, certain agencies like GEA [Guyana Energy Agency] has to come together because everybody wants to do it the right way,” he had noted.
In a letter to Stabroek News in June, 2014, then Prime Minister Sam Hinds, who had responsibility for energy, had said GWF had put forward a very attractive proposal that could see Goldwind of China, rated at least third in the world in the establishment of wind farms, setting up a 10×2.5 MW wind farm at Hope Beach at a total cost of about US$42 million.
Goldwind would provide 75% of total financing and take 51% of the equity shares. Hinds said that he was informed that a financing arrangement was made with Republic Bank for a loan of US$2 million in June of last year.
Hinds did not indicate specifically why a proposed MoU between GWF and the government had yet to be signed but noted that there were issues that needed to be determined.
“I would like to see an agreement that won’t later create ambiguity to the different sides and so on,” he had said, while hinting that there may be issues with the Power Purchase Agreement that would need to be comprehensively worked out before any agreement was signed.
When Stabroek News had spoken to Singh in 2017, he had related that the Power Purchase Agreement had not yet been negotiated with GPL.
