FP020

Financing commercial Geothermal Energy (GE) projects whilst strengthening legal and regulatory frameworks to underpin the development of GE potential in the East Caribbean region.

The five East Caribbean states of Dominica, Grenada, Saint Kitts & Nevis, Saint Lucia and Saint Vincent & Grenadines have small and isolated electricity markets that depend heavily on imported liquid fossil fuels for electricity generation. Geothermal Energy (GE) presents the largest available renewable energy resource, with the potential to provide low cost, reliable electricity generation.

The main barriers to GE development are the high investment cost, high uncertainty during early development stages, lack of access to capital and ability to finance through public debt, inadequate regulatory and policy frameworks, and other factors such as lack of technical skills and economies of scale.

The Sustainable Energy Facility for the Eastern Caribbean will address these financial, technical and institutional barriers by providing institutional strengthening and capacity building, and provide a financing package including concessional loans and reimbursable grants to mitigate exploration and other underlying risks and unlock investments in GE by the private sector, critical to develop GE projects in the region. The end result will be to deliver GHG Emission Reductions of 9.4 million TCO2e during the lifetime of the programme.

The project has an estimated lifespan of 8 years.