~ Wants 30 year agreement with GEBE ~
PHILIPSBURG–A possible end to the ever-smoking dump in the middle of the country was laid out before legislators by Florida-based EnviroPower Renewable Inc. on Friday morning. While the company’s plan seemed like exactly what the country needs, there is still a long way to go before the thick smoke clears and mountain of garbage disappears.
EnviroPower met with Members of Parliament (MPs) in a sitting of the Committee for Environment and Infrastructure to outline their vision for the dump. Government would need to get on board if this vision for a 12-megawatt waste-to-energy plant is to become a reality.
The plant, if government signs a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that ultimately leads to the construction, will produce electricity from the garbage. The power supply will then be sold to electricity company GEBE for US $0.25 per kilowatt hour (KwH). This will help to lessen the country’s dependence on fossil fuels. The KwH can also be lowered as new technological options come online according to the contract to be proposed to government.
A section of Pond Island has been identified for the placement of the pre-fabricated plant. The main components and parts of the plant will be assembled in the United States and shipped to the country.
“Cleaner than the cleanest natural gas plant” will provide power to GEBE consistently every day of the year except for scheduled maintenance shutdown, EnviroPower CEO Keith Hulbert said. “We are very, very clean. We are cleaner than a diesel truck driving past your house.”
The company proposes to finance, design and build the waste-to-energy plant with limited up front cost to government. It wants first right of refusal to all garbage collected in the country for the life of the plant, rights to the land the plant will be built one and no duty or income tax levy. The latter, Hulbert explained, is a way to keep the cost per KwH down.
A vital part of the EnviroPower proposal is a 30-year power purchase with GEBE.
The cost to government directly will be that of the annual cost to run the dump. All other costs will be covered in the per KwH price.
No government financing or guarantee is needed for the waste-to-energy plant. EnviroPower will seek its own investment. However, government must make a solid decision on how it plans to move forward – if with this company or not.
Should government and GEBE sign up with the company, the hurricane-wind resistant and debris deflecting roof plant will take some 15 months to be built and three months to assemble here.
The plant will be designed to operate on the municipal solid waste (MSW) – primarily household garbage, and sorted combustibles recovered from the existing dump. It will have a dual rotor kilns for “reliability and redundancy.” Some 42 people will be employed in the plant.
Hulbert anticipates that the plant will be a tourism booster due to the technology used, being cutting edge, and sought after by other places seeking to better their solid waste management.
Hulbert, investment banking firm PiperJaffray Managing Director Project Financing Investment Banking George Longo and EnviroPower Chief Technology Officer Bary Wilson discussed the elements of the plant in the parliament session. MPs had numerous questions for the firm representatives.
Source: The Daily Herald https://www.thedailyherald.sx/islands/82033-enviropower-lay-out-possible-solution-to-smoking-dump
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