Anguilla Electricity Company (ANGLEC)’s proposed 12 megawatt solar farm could reduce its annual EC$80 million fuel bill by up to 26%, according to chair David Carty.
The announcement came as the power company continues discussions with the Caribbean Development Bank on the terms of a loan which was approved in principle for the project in February.
David Carty, speaking during the government’s Just the Facts programme on 24 March, said the agreement would fund the cost of a 12 MW facility, backed by the “best battery, energy storage systems”.
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“We settled on 12 MW, because… [in] Anguilla, and this is something that just aggravates the heck out of me, we spend $80 million a year to buy diesel to keep these lights on,” he said
“I find that unconscionable and that’s why I have been such a proponent of this.”
He said that by installing a 12MW solar farm, the energy generated “would perhaps save us as much as 25% to 26% of that cost”, while the loan would cost just 30% of what is saved.
“We could pay the loan easily with that kind of savings and put a good bit under the mattress, or hopefully reinvest in further renewables,” the chair said.
Land for the farm
Carty went on to say that ANGLEC, a publicly traded company in which the government controls the majority of the shares, had “pulled off a hat-trick” in terms of access to land for the project.
This included five acres which it leased from the government, 14 acres it has been able to buy and another 32 acres of Crown land in Corito, he explained.
“It easily takes care of the 12 MW that we intend to build, and it allows future boards of ANGLEC and future governments, if they want to – and I hope they do, to continue the transition to renewables.
“All the land is there already, so no future board of ANGLEC has to worry about how we’re going to get land to put on renewables.
“That is a huge step, and I’m very, very, very happy that this board has been able to achieve that, because future boards are going to benefit from that step enormously.”
During an interview on Radio Anguilla last August, Carty discussed the proposed CDB loan agreement, during which he said it would be “somewhere in the region of” US$20 million.
At the time, Carty said that ANGLEC had considered other financial institutions but faced challenges due to Anguilla’s status as a UK overseas territory.
Details of the loan’s value have not yet been released, however, ANGLEC and the Ministry of Utilities have committed to issuing a formal public disclosure of all financial details once approval is finalised.
