By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Senior Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

WORKS Minister Desmond Bannister said yesterday that in early June, 95 percent of power in Ragged Island will be generated “from the largest, most modern solar field” in the country.

He was speaking during his mid-year budget contribution in the House of Assembly.

Mr Bannister said testing and commissioning for the solar project was supposed to be completed by the end of December 2020, but a technical glitch caused a delay.

“All the elements of the project have been installed at the sites and the EPC contractor, Solution Provider, independent engineers and BPL have identified two solutions to address the issue,” he said. “Currently, the EPC contractor is getting quotes and timelines for the required equipment for each of these solutions. It is anticipated that this may require approximately 12 weeks to acquire an implement once identified.

“The integrated generator controls, solar panels, inverters, and battery storage have all gone through preliminary testing.

“Currently, the island is being supplied via conventional generation. This will be transitioned to the microgram solution once the required components are installed and the system commissioning completed.”

Explaining how the system would work, Mr Bannister said “the solar array will produce power into the grid that is used by the community” during the day and the “excess energy will be stored in the BESS (battery energy storage system) unit and the diesel generators would be off.”

“At night the BESS unit will release the stored energy into the grid to be used by the community.

“If the energy in the BESS unit starts to run low, it will send a signal to the generator controllers to start a generator to make up the shortfall in capacity.

“At current load levels on Ragged Island, it is anticipated that the generators would not have to run at all unless there are successive days of inclement weather.”

The government signed a contract in June 2019 with Tugliq Energy for the Ragged Island solar project.

After Hurricane Irma devastated the island in 2017, Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis promised to convert Ragged Island into a sustainable “green” community.