KINGSTOWN, St Vincent (CMC) – St Vincent and the Grenadines has launched its geothermal energy initiative that Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves believes will be a “potentially game changing initiative”.
Prime Minister Gonsalves, speaking at the launch of the testing phase of the project said geothermal energy “is something which is getting more and more interest across the region.
“So, I want to say that we are in the next phase of the operations … The story is that we are making progress and it is a matter of great interest not only to St Vincent and the Grenadines, but the Caribbean, to the neighbouring countries such as St Lucia and Barbados,” Gonsalves said at the launch of the project on Friday.
Chief operating officer of the Iceland-based Reykjavik Geothermal, Gunnar Orn Gunnarsson, said that his company is confident about possibilities of geothermal energy here, but that scientific data was needed to analyse the potential.
“I have to say that after we have been studying the possibilities now for some months, gathering all of the information that is available for geothermal resources, we have found that there is an opportunity and therefore we have decided to go to the next stage of this journey that we are on. This is doing some surface exploration work,” he said.
Gunnarsson said that scientists from Iceland would visit St Vincent and the Grenadines next week to do surface exploration work and that they would remain here until mid-December and would pay a visit to the Soufriere mountains.
