En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal has iden­ti­fied wind as a key re­source for util­i­ty-scale pow­er de­vel­op­ment in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The min­is­ter high­light­ed the im­por­tance of wind en­er­gy while he de­liv­ered the keynote ad­dress at the Val­i­da­tion Work­shop for the Eu­ro­pean Union Fund­ed Na­tion­al Wind En­er­gy Ac­tion Plan (WEAP), host­ed at the head of­fice of the Na­tion­al En­er­gy Cor­po­ra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go Lim­it­ed (Na­tion­al En­er­gy) in Cou­va.

He not­ed the progress of the On­shore Wind Re­source As­sess­ment Pro­gramme (WRAP), which will be ex­pand­ed with the de­ploy­ment of two ad­di­tion­al wind mea­sure­ment de­vices cov­er­ing the Los Iros/San­ta Flo­ra and To­co/Man­zanil­la ar­eas by the end of this week.

The En­er­gy Min­is­ter an­nounced that wind en­er­gy progress will not be lim­it­ed to the com­ple­tion of the on­shore WRAP as he has di­rect­ed that off­shore wind will be pur­sued con­cur­rent­ly.

“The Min­istry, as chair of the Wind En­er­gy Steer­ing Com­mit­tee of Trinidad and To­ba­go, will be is­su­ing a re­quest for pro­pos­als to con­duct an off­shore wind re­source as­sess­ment pro­gramme for Trinidad and To­ba­go. Ladies and gen­tle­men, it is my in­ten­tion to have bank­able da­ta avail­able for in­vestors by 2026, iden­ti­fy­ing the best sites both for on­shore and off­shore wind de­ploy­ment,” Min­is­ter Mooni­lal said.

Ac­cord­ing to a re­lease from the work­shop led by the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries, the event sought to progress through pre­sen­ta­tions and dis­cus­sions, the ac­tion plan for the Na­tion­al Wind En­er­gy De­vel­op­ment which builds up­on the wind strat­e­gy, “Set­ting the Path for Wind En­er­gy Gen­er­a­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go Re­port”, a desk­top study fund­ed by the Del­e­ga­tion of the Eu­ro­pean Union.

“As the ex­e­cut­ing agency for the Wind Re­source As­sess­ment Pro­gramme, Na­tion­al En­er­gy re­mains ful­ly com­mit­ted to our Min­istry, to our part­ners, and to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go. We are de­ter­mined to en­sure that our en­er­gy tran­si­tion re­mains fo­cused, am­bi­tious, and above all achiev­able,” pres­i­dent of Na­tion­al En­er­gy, Dr Ver­non Pal­too, stat­ed.