Energy Director To Attend Energy Conferences
The Director of Energy Ms Jeane Nikolai will attend two conferences in the Caribbean next week to discuss the region’s renewable energy sector.
From April 16 to 17 Ms Nikolai will attend the Barbados Power Summit in Bridgetown Barbados and then go on to attend the Jamaica Power Summit in Kingston, Jamaica on April 19 and 20 – as a guest speaker at both. Ms Nikolai’s airfare costs have been covered by overseas event organizers.
Both summits will discuss utilizing local renewable resources, effectively managing oil use, and implementing clean energy practices. Industry professionals will discuss energy development issues related to policy and regulations as well as technology implementation regarding low-cost reliability.
Ms Nikolai said: “At both conferences we will discuss the respective energy developments in our region and some of the key issues around alternate energy. In my presentation I will discuss what we’ve done here in terms of developing the Energy White Paper and hopefully plant the seeds of regional collaboration as a big part of what we need to do to achieve successes.
“With our solar and wind resources, ‘we’ (speaking regionally, not locally) could become the epicenter of all things renewable for the world. If a country needs to train someone in solar PV or solar thermal, or wind installations they should be able to come here, to the Caribbean region, to learn from us. We built tourism on our sunshine and breezes, we need to build our green economy on that same resource.”
Ms Nikolai will also discuss the development of the White Paper, and its connection to sustainable development. Ms Nikolai plans to touch heavily on the Energy White Paper during her presentations.
She said: “White Paper proposed policies are manifold – they range from intra-departmental government policies such as the establishment of an energy management programme within the public service to allow us to lead by example, to the eventual prohibition of inefficient goods from being imported, to amending building codes and mandatory energy auditing.
“The biggest challenges are that we need to get the public forcefully behind our policies.”
The Minister of Environment, Planning and Infrastructure Strategy Marc Bean said: “Conferences such as these are imperative for Bermuda as there are many gains to be made by a regional collaboration. It’s important to share that knowledge, and to soak up what we can from what other countries similar to ours are doing.”
“The Ministry will be receiving a full report from Ms Nikolai upon her return, as is required from any attendance to a conference, and I look forward to learning about the development of regulatory environments in other locations and also what sorts of policy initiatives worked in other countries.”
Some of the topics to be explored at the Conference include: FastOx waste gasification; plasma gasification technologies; wind development challenges in small island environments; funding opportunities and financial impact for renewables; alternative energy solutions markets; LED streetlight pilot project case studies; partnering with local manufacturers to create jobs; fluid-applied cool roof technology; recycling technology for replacement of old hardware; and domestic refinement capacity and potential of crude oil for Caribbean regions.
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