WAPA to Begin Final Review and Discussions with Six Companies for Alternative and Renewable Electric Energy

Hugo Hodge Jr., CPQ, Executive Director of the Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority, has announced the completion of a thorough analysis of 14 proposals submitted in response to WAPA’s Request for Proposal to Provide Electric Energy to the Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority. WAPA will immediately begin final review and discussions with six companies. WAPA’s goal is to enter into a 20-year Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) within the next three to five months for the purchase of energy with one or more of the proposed projects that can provide a guaranteed monthly supply of energy at a cost that is lower than WAPA’s projected energy costs.

The selected proposals for St. Thomas include waste-to-energy facilities proposed by Alpine Energy Group of Englewood, Colorado and BioEnergy, Inc. of Cherry Hill, New Jersey. The selected proposals for St. Croix include a coal facility proposed by St. Croix Renaissance Group of the Virgin Islands, an ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) facility proposed by Sea Solar Power International of Washington, DC., a geothermal solution proposed by West Indies Power Holdings, B.V. of Charlestown, Nevis and a combined wind and solar facility proposed by BlueWave Capital, LLC of Boston, Massachusetts in cooperation with St. Croix Renaissance Group in the Virgin Islands. WAPA is also considering the costs to interconnect St. Croix and St. Thomas, in which case St. Croix Renaissance Group and West Indies Power B.V. could be considered as a solution for St. Thomas. WAPA is seeking to diversify its generation portfolio away from fuel oil and replace up to 26 megawatts (MW) of energy on St. Croix and up to 30 megawatts (MW) of energy on St. Thomas with these alternative and renewable energy solutions. This goal, if realized, is approximately 40% of WAPA’s territory-wide normal daily peak power.

This RFP is just one component of WAPA’s ongoing strategy to reduce the impact to its customers of rising fuel oil prices, Hodge said. In addition to the possibilities of an interconnection between St. Croix and St. Thomas, other alternatives including retrofitting existing units to operate on natural gas will be considered with the goal of minimizing the impact of rising fuel oil prices on WAPA’s customers, Hodge said..

Proposals received on May 1, 2008 in response to the RFP issued last December included options for alternative and renewable energy provided through OTEC, solar, wind, geothermal, waste to energy, coal-fired cogeneration, compressed natural gas and an inter-island connection cable between St. Croix and St. Thomas. Hodge said that the six proposals selected by WAPA, assisted by its technical consultants, offer the greatest potential to meet the goals that were stated in the RFP which were to reduce the cost of providing electricity to its customers and to decrease WAPA’s dependence on volatile oil prices by attracting the development or expansion of non-oil electricity generation facilities in St. Thomas and St. Croix.