Meeting last week in Washington with officials from federal agencies, the V.I. Water and Power Authority leadership took another step toward bringing power from Puerto Rico to the U.S. Virgin Islands.
In his report before WAPA’s board on Thursday, Executive Director Hugo Hodge Jr. briefed members on his “pretty exciting long days last week.”
The plan, which has the attention of the highest levels of many of the Western Hemisphere’s governments, would bring power via underwater cable from Puerto Rico to St. Thomas, from whence it could be distributed to the rest of the territory and possibly to other Caribbean islands.
Hodge has talks scheduled with officials from the British Virgin Islands next week to discuss how the plan might assist with the British territory’s energy needs.
The power that would come from Puerto Rico is produced in excess of that territory’s needs, according to Clinton Hedrington, WAPA’s director of transmission and distribution. The Puerto Rican power supply—which comes from several sources, including coal and some diesel-driven steam turbines—includes some 600 to 800 megawatts of “spinning reserve.”
For comparison, the St. Thomas–St. John District use peaks at 88 megawatts, Hedrington said.
The buzz that the plan is generating has reached Washington, where it has captured the attention of Cabinet members, including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
In her April address to the Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas (ECPA) Ministerial at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Clinton cited the Caribbean’s dire need for relief from burdensome fuel costs and talked about the beginnings of high-level discussions about the plan.
“This is the area of the world most dependent on imported fossil fuels and suffering from the world’s highest electricity rates,” Clinton said.
Clinton noted talks about the plan included the Organization of American States, Caribbean energy ministers, CARICOM (the Caribbean Community), the World Bank, the IDB, and officials from Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
“…[They] launched a dialogue to explore the possibility of installing undersea electric cables in the region to give the Caribbean access to new power supplies,” Clinton said. “Another exciting possibility would link Puerto Rico with the U.S. Virgin Islands, and a third would link the islands of Nevis and St. Kitts.”
The assumption, Hodge told the board, is that the Puerto Rico–V.I. connection is the first leg of energy links throughout Caribbean and that is why the State Department has become involved.
In his meetings last week with officials from the U.S. departments of Energy and Interior, as well as the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Hodge initiated discussions on a variety of issues, including regulation and funding sources.
FERC’s interest is largely one of jurisdiction—whether the agency has regulatory oversight responsibilities should the plan become a reality.
The fact that WAPA is a municipally run authority could preclude the federal agency from regulating it.
“We have to get some clarity on how this will be viewed,” Hodge said. “The sense was that it [FERC] probably would not [have oversight].”
The impact of another regulatory body, in addition to the V.I. Public Services Commission could lead to an increase in costs, Hodge explained.
Hodge said that FERC’s legal team would provide an opinion in an upcoming conference call.
Meetings with other agencies—including the rural side of the departments of Agriculture, Interior and Energy, as well as the Federal Emergency Management Agency—brought forth preliminary pledges of funding support, which Hodge said plumbed the agencies’ creative sides.
Hodge said that funding may have to go through a Congressional appropriation in the neighborhood of $150-250 million, depending on whether the interconnection is alternating current (AC) or direct current (DC).
Commercial interests are already chomping at the bit to get involved.
“The RFP (request for proposal) is out,” Hodge said. “We had a pre-bid meeting here last Monday with seven or eight companies showing interest. This thing is moving with its own head of steam.”
The National Renewable Energy Lab assisted WAPA with the creation of the RFP, with some additional help from the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, Hodge said.
Both organizations will help with bids when they come in, Hodge reported.
