The Caribbean Island of St. Lucia is known for its beautiful beaches, lush rainforests, and colorful coral reefs. But for some of the almost 200,000 people that live on the island, another incredible resource is affecting their daily lives \u2014 the nearly 15,000 solar panels that are producing clean, reliable, electricity from the island\u2019s first utility-scale solar farm.<\/p>\n
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The island\u2019s utility company, St. Lucia Electricity Services Limited (LUCELEC), with support from RMI, completed the 4 megawatt system just north of Hewanorra International Airport in August 2018. And in the first three years of operation, it produced 24.7 million kWh of electricity \u2014 enough to power 3,500 homes \u2014 saving 1.5 million gallons of diesel and more than $3 million.<\/p>\n
Saint Lucia, a 238 square mile island in the eastern Caribbean is \u2014 like all small island developing states \u2014 particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. In 2010, Hurricane Tomas devastated the island, damaging roads and bridges, causing electricity blackouts, and killing 14 people. More recently, last month\u2019s Hurricane Beryl flooded streets and downed power lines across the southern part of the island. Although Saint Lucians contribute very little to climate change, they bear the brunt of the impacts. But they are also working hard to make their island more resilient.<\/p>\n
James Fletcher, former Saint Lucian minister for public service, information, broadcasting, sustainable development, energy, science and technology, led the Caribbean\u2019s delegation to the Paris Agreement negotiations and was a big part of reaching consensus on the call to limit warming to 1.5\u00b0C. \u201cIf we don\u2019t agree on 1.5C\u2026there\u2019s a very strong possibility that some of these countries would physically not exist anymore,\u201d Fletcher says. \u201cIt\u2019s not just a matter of \u2018half a degree,\u2019 it\u2019s a matter of life or death for so many people.\u201d The island has a target of reducing its climate pollution 23 percent by 2050. The solar farm is one step toward that goal.<\/p>\n
The Solar Farm Journey<\/h3>\n
The journey to the solar farm actually began in 2015 with a case study. RMI was hired by the Government of Saint Lucia to develop a National Energy Transition Strategy for the island. The island was shipping in diesel for the sole electric plant on the island and it was costly. \u201cOf course, Saint Lucia is very vulnerable to climate change. But nobody was thinking of that in 2015. It was really related to cost,\u201d says RMI\u2019s Kaitlyn Bunker, one of the analysts who produced the transition strategy. \u201cThey were ready to make a change in their energy system.\u201d<\/p>\n
So, with funding from the Global Environment Facility (managed by the United Nations Development Program \u2013 UNDP), RMI embarked on an analysis of different renewable energy scenarios for the island. At the same time that RMI was working on the national transition strategy, the team was looking for a project that made sense to do right then. LUCELEC had land, and Saint Lucia is blessed with a lot of sunlight (the island\u2019s national motto is \u201cThe Land, the People, the Light\u201d), so a solar farm was an obvious choice. \u201cWe were able to support the preparation work for the solar farm in parallel with doing the national level planning, and those two things could inform each other,\u201d says Bunker.<\/p>\n