Lo­cal elec­tric­i­ty provider, T&TEC, will be­gin con­duct­ing site test­ing for wind en­er­gy har­vest­ing in this coun­try over the course of the next 12 months.

This was con­firmed by Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les as he ad­dressed the Caribbean Elec­tric Util­i­ty Ser­vices Cor­po­ra­tion (CAR­ILEC) en­gi­neer­ing and pro­cure­ment con­fer­ence and ex­hi­bi­tion at the Hy­att on Sun­day evening.

“The com­mis­sion (T&TEC) will lat­er this year com­mence more ex­ten­sive wind gen­er­a­tion test­ing, us­ing light de­tect­ing and rang­ing wind mon­i­tor­ing sys­tems. Tests will be con­duct­ed in one-year in­cre­ments on at least four sites in Trinidad iden­ti­fied as hav­ing high po­ten­tial for wind pow­er.

“Test­ing will be done at two sites at a time, the wind speed da­ta col­lect­ed over the 12-month pe­ri­od will be used to de­ter­mine whether suf­fi­cient wind re­sources ex­ist at these lo­ca­tions and es­ti­mate the per­for­mance and eco­nom­ic vi­a­bil­i­ty of wind tur­bine gen­er­a­tion,” said Gon­za­les.

He said that should wind tur­bine gen­er­a­tion be found fea­si­ble, the da­ta will aid in the de­vel­op­ment of wind farms in Trinidad and To­ba­go. This would add re­new­able tech­nol­o­gy to the coun­try’s port­fo­lio for pow­er gen­er­a­tion with the long-term ben­e­fit be­ing the re­duc­tion of car­bon emis­sions as­so­ci­at­ed with fos­sil fu­el gen­er­a­tion.

The Min­is­ter not­ed that T&TEC had been do­ing test­ing on al­ter­na­tive and re­new­able en­er­gy sources in re­cent years and had been us­ing the da­ta com­piled to de­vel­op poli­cies and frame­works for the adop­tion of the meth­ods by cit­i­zens.

This ap­proach could al­so po­ten­tial­ly re­duce Trinidad and To­ba­go’s car­bon emis­sions.

He ex­plained, “Over the years, the com­mis­sion’s re­search has in­clud­ed a so­lar PV pi­lot project at T&TEC Mt Hope, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go O’Meara cam­pus, a T&TEC Pow­er­gen hy­brid so­lar and wind sys­tem at the Is­lam­ic chil­dren home in Gas­par­il­lo and wind pow­er test­ing at Min­is­ter’s Bay and Flagstaff in To­ba­go. These test sites pro­vid­ed a good ac­count of the amount of al­ter­na­tive en­er­gy to be gained un­der vary­ing con­di­tions.

“The so­lar projects al­so fa­cil­i­tat­ed a draft­ing of the wiring for re­new­able man­u­al lead­ing to a tech­ni­cal guide for wiring build­ings ac­cord­ing to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Bu­reau of Stan­dards and the elec­tri­cal in­spec­torate safe­ty stan­dards.”

He said, “A re­cent sur­vey on re­new­able en­er­gy, en­er­gy ef­fi­cien­cy and en­er­gy pric­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go shows high aware­ness and in­ter­est in in­stalling so­lar tech­nolo­gies such as rooftop pho­to-volta­ic sys­tems. We are com­mit­ted to mak­ing the re­quired changes to our leg­isla­tive frame­work to al­low for a feed­ing tar­iff and do­mes­tic rooftop gen­er­a­tion util­i­ty meet­ing the build­ing stan­dard code for the sec­tor.”