Caribbean renewables have made a sluggish start, but could still gather steam

Nevis has an installed generation capacity of just 13MW but an estimated geothermal potential of 100MW

Nevis Tourism Authority

By Christiana Sciaudone

 Thursday, June 14 2012

Updated: Sunday, November 25 2012

Caribbean islands are likely to suffer greatly at the hands of climate change. But their progress towards adopting renewable energy has been sluggish, even if the mission to be free from dependency on expensive fossil fuels is politically desirable and economically essential.

Monopolistic state-owned utilities are often considered the root cause of stagnation in what should be buoyant renewables markets, given the abundance of sun, sea and wind. But speculative developers with questionable intentions, or “raiders of the Caribbean”, as one Nevis politician puts it, are also to blame for holding back progress.

The most recent incident is the case of the much-anticipated Nevis geothermal project.

Nevis is a modest island of 93sq km — a sister to the neighbouring St Kitts, with which it forms a nation state.

Nevis has an installed generation capacity of…

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