Ground broken for major solar project in Clarendon

7:28 am, Fri July 10, 2015

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Robert Blenker, CEO of Content Solar, and Kelly Tomblin, CEO of JPS

Ground was broken on Thursday for Jamaica's first utility scale solar project, in Content, Clarendon.

The plant, which will cost US$60 million, will be established by United States based WRB Enterprises. It will be called Content Solar, and will supply 20 megawatt of electricity to the grid.

Robert Blenker, CEO of Content Solar, who is also a vice-president of WRB Enterprises, said the installations will be spread over 160 acres with 92 thousand solar panels to be in place by next year.

He invited his audience to "imagine twenty thousand home being powered by these panels that will be in this field... with energy that's produced in Jamaica with Jamaican resources - Jamaican sun."

Furthermore, he said, it was important to take into consideration the fact that this will replace the need for three million gallons of oil annually to power these twenty thousand homes.

This is the third renewable energy project to get underway in Jamaica since the start of the year. It is part of 115 megawatt of renewables which should be brought onto the grid within the next few years.

Done right

Kelly Tomblin, CEO of JPS, reiterated her stance that the integration of renewables, which are usually intermittent in the production of electricity into the grid, must be done right.

While acknowledging the benefits of renewables - lessening polution, lowering energy prices, reducing the trade imbalance - she said that, if not done right, these projects cause "system issues," and "we widen the disparities between the most prosperous and the most vulnerable."

Jamaica is seeking to have 20 per cent of electricity generated from renewables by 2030.