The Cli­mate Re­silience Ex­e­cu­tion Agency for Do­mini­ca (CREAD) has signed a Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing (MoU) with Ke­nes­jay Green Lim­it­ed (KGL),

CEO of CREAD, Francine Baron, and Philip Julien, the Chair­man of KGL signed the MOU dur­ing the Glas­gow Cli­mate Change Con­fer­ence (COP26) in the NDC Part­ner­ship Ex­hib­it Pre­sen­ta­tion area.

The agree­ment will seek out op­tions for Do­mini­ca to har­ness its ap­prox­i­mate­ly 2GW of geo-ther­mal en­er­gy as part of its tran­si­tion to a low car­bon econ­o­my.

This is ex­pect­ed to play an im­por­tant role in a glob­al hy­dro­gen sup­ply change, pro­vid­ing in­vest­ment re­turns to part­ners, while sup­port­ing re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al ef­forts to net ze­ro.

Un­der the MOU, CREAD and KGL will form a work­ing part­ner­ship to fa­cil­i­tate the col­lab­o­ra­tive de­vel­op­ment of Green In­dus­tri­al Eco Parks (GIEP), green hy­dro­gen pro­duc­tion, car­bon se­ques­tra­tion, and de­car­bon­is­ing in­dus­tries.

Baron said, “This sign­ing com­ple­ments the work that Do­mini­ca is do­ing with the sup­port of the Green Cli­mate Fund (GCF) in de­vel­op­ing green in­dus­tri­al projects as a ma­jor di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion ef­fort and sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment for Do­mini­ca.” She fur­ther not­ed that “CREAD will work with Ke­nes­jay Green Lim­it­ed to ex­pe­di­tious­ly po­si­tion Do­mini­ca to take ad­van­tage of its vast geo-ther­mal re­sources and grow­ing glob­al mar­ket in­ter­est for new eco-friend­ly prod­ucts such as green hy­dro­gen. This is an ex­cit­ing op­por­tu­ni­ty, and this MOU will help ac­cel­er­ate Do­mini­ca’s ef­forts to be a key re­gion­al play­er in the fight against cli­mate change.”

Julien added, “The world is in­vest­ing heav­i­ly in re­new­able en­er­gy and car­bon-neu­tral hy­dro­gen. We see im­mense in­vest­ment po­ten­tial based on the abun­dance of Do­mini­ca’s geo-ther­mal en­er­gy, en­abling many new ex­port in­dus­tries, and cre­at­ing green tech­nol­o­gy jobs. We aim to sup­port Do­mini­ca’s green eco­nom­ic di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion in part by us­ing re­new­able geo-ther­mal en­er­gy. We are ex­cit­ed to be a part of the na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment ef­fort of Do­mini­ca aimed at build­ing a re­silient eco­nom­ic fu­ture for its cit­i­zens pow­ered by lo­cal, green en­er­gy, which is good for the plan­et. Ul­ti­mate­ly these in­vest­ments will fur­ther de­vel­op the Caribbean re­gion­al grid in­fra­struc­ture through the po­ten­tial for ex­port of green en­er­gy to sup­port the eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment of neigh­bour­ing is­lands, while al­so util­is­ing the same green en­er­gy in-coun­try.”

KGL will serve as a pri­vate sec­tor part­ner and project de­vel­op­er and will work with CREAD to de­vel­op iden­ti­fied in­vest­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties in Do­mini­ca, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with bi­lat­er­al, mul­ti­lat­er­al, and pri­vate sec­tor part­ners. It will con­duct a coun­try as­sess­ment fo­cused on iden­ti­fy­ing po­ten­tial pri­or­i­ty in­vest­ments to ac­cel­er­ate the is­land’s tran­si­tion to a low car­bon econ­o­my.

KGL will pur­sue, with CREAD, com­mer­cial­ly vi­able in­vest­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties based on the util­i­sa­tion of geo-ther­mal reser­voirs, ap­ply­ing break­through clean tech­nol­o­gy in up­stream and down­stream ap­pli­ca­tions to gen­er­ate cost com­pet­i­tive green hy­dro­gen and Pow­er to X op­por­tu­ni­ties. KGL will al­so as­sist in de­vel­op­ing the skills and ca­pa­bil­i­ty need­ed for the busi­ness ac­tiv­i­ty lo­cat­ed with­in the Green In­dus­tri­al Eco Parks.

Kis­han Ku­mars­ingh, the Head of Mul­ti­lat­er­al En­vi­ron­men­tal Agree­ments at the Min­istry of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment in Trinidad and To­ba­go al­so at­tend­ed the sign­ing as a spe­cial guest.