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St. GEORGE’S, GRENADA, Monday, May 23, 2016: In Keeping with the Geothermal Support Partnership Framework Agreement that was signed in 2014, between the Governments of Grenada and New Zealand, aimed at facilitating the exploration and eventual use of geothermal energy the following have now been completed:

 

The review of previous studies;

The undertaking of extensive geochemical, geophysics and geological surveys;

Analysis of the institutional, legislative and regulatory frameworks for undertaking environmental and social impacts relative to developments requiring such; and

Preliminary analysis of the infrastructural capacity relative to facilitating access of equipment, to the potential site.

In July 2015 at the Grenada Geothermal Partner’s Forum, the presence of a high temperature geothermal reservoir of about 4 – 8km2, located North of Mt. St. Catherine was confirmed. It was also stated that this reservoir has a potential temperature between 220-2400C or higher, which if correct, is of a capacity to generate between 15-20 megawatts (MW) of power.

Within the first quarter of 2016, experts from both Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and JACOBS (New Zealand), completed:

–         a second Geoscience report on the status of the Geothermal resource;

–         a Geothermal Resources Development Roadmap; and

–         a preliminary civil engineering survey;

They also held consultations with officials from the Ministries of Finance and Energy; Works; Health; Agriculture and officials from the statutory bodies whose work involve environmental and social issues pertaining to the Geothermal process.

During the period April 4th – 8th, Mr. Aoki Issei – JICA’s Deputy Director for Central America and the Caribbean and his Deputy, Mr. Nakayama Shun visited Grenada and held meetings with environmental and social stakeholders and paid a courtesy calls to the Permanent Secretary and other senior officials of the Ministry of Finance, exploring the progress to date on Grenada’s geothermal initiative. It was agreed that the immediate next step in this process will be the hosting of broad based Geothermal Forum before the second half of 2016.

The Ministry takes this opportunity to record its appreciation to all who have participated in the process thus far.

The Government of Grenada welcomes the bilateral cooperation and the technical assistance provided by friendly Governments, and takes this opportunity to acknowledge its gratitude to the Governments of New Zealand and Japan through JACOBS New Zealand Ltd., and JICA respectively, for their demonstrated cooperation and collaboration in this initiative.

To date, in excess of US$1M has been spent to date by these Governments on the Grenada Geothermal process.