Dear Editor,
On behalf of myself and ENERPLAN Limited, I endorse nearly all of what your columnist, engineer and renewables advocate David Cooke has just written in the Jamaica Observer, June 1, 2016, on pumped hydro-storage.
Incidentally, I was the renewable energy specialist who, while the divisional director at the Scientific Research Council (SRC), originally proposed, predesigned and procured funding (from the Germans, nudged by UNIDO’s Bill Tanaka) for the small hydropower plants that have been supplying the National Electrical Grid from sites at the Constant Spring Filter Plant and below the Hermitage Dam at the entrance to Ram’s Horn Tunnel.
Both half-megawatt scale renewable energy systems paid for themselves in under two years and have been in operation, supplying power to the national grid, for over 34 years. Prior to that, I also proposed, designed and, with the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) Engineering Unit, built the stand-alone micro-hydro plant at the former Marston-Daniels site at Red Light District on the Newcastle Road.
When, after two years, I left the SRC in 1981 and formed ENERPLAN Ltd, it fell to the JDF to maintain that facility for their own purposes. That was a mistake. Due to lack of maintenance, despite the well-meaning efforts of the Red Light villagers, their “village generator” fell into disrepair.
My work was recognised by the United Nations, which used my services through ENERPLAN as a hydro-power consultant in The Philippines, China, Malaysia, Ethiopia, Dominica, Austria and Guyana. I wrote the initial defining UNIDO manual on SHP and MHP under a UN contract. People such as the late Joseph O’Lall of Guyana, and the very much alive Jamaican engineers Richard Delisser and Major Desmond Brown were among the experts collaborating on hydropower from our region then. The JPS, CDB, JDF, the energy ministry, Planning Institute and the SRC seem to have suffered complete collective amnesia, despite the millions of US dollars in imported petroleum fuel costs that Ram’s Horn and Constant Spring still continue to save this nation after 34 years of sustained, quiet, non-polluting operation.
Cooke is correct: Pumped storage is a route to take now. To my knowledge, appropriate examples of what to do abound throughout our hemisphere and in all but one of the countries and regions named earlier in this letter.
More anon.
Dennis A Minott, PhD
Chairman and CEO
ENERPLAN Ltd
prudent_one_ja@yahoo.com
On behalf of myself and ENERPLAN Limited, I endorse nearly all of what your columnist, engineer and renewables advocate David Cooke has just written in the Jamaica Observer, June 1, 2016, on pumped hydro-storage.
Incidentally, I was the renewable energy specialist who, while the divisional director at the Scientific Research Council (SRC), originally proposed, predesigned and procured funding (from the Germans, nudged by UNIDO’s Bill Tanaka) for the small hydropower plants that have been supplying the National Electrical Grid from sites at the Constant Spring Filter Plant and below the Hermitage Dam at the entrance to Ram’s Horn Tunnel.
Both half-megawatt scale renewable energy systems paid for themselves in under two years and have been in operation, supplying power to the national grid, for over 34 years. Prior to that, I also proposed, designed and, with the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) Engineering Unit, built the stand-alone micro-hydro plant at the former Marston-Daniels site at Red Light District on the Newcastle Road.
When, after two years, I left the SRC in 1981 and formed ENERPLAN Ltd, it fell to the JDF to maintain that facility for their own purposes. That was a mistake. Due to lack of maintenance, despite the well-meaning efforts of the Red Light villagers, their “village generator” fell into disrepair.
My work was recognised by the United Nations, which used my services through ENERPLAN as a hydro-power consultant in The Philippines, China, Malaysia, Ethiopia, Dominica, Austria and Guyana. I wrote the initial defining UNIDO manual on SHP and MHP under a UN contract. People such as the late Joseph O’Lall of Guyana, and the very much alive Jamaican engineers Richard Delisser and Major Desmond Brown were among the experts collaborating on hydropower from our region then. The JPS, CDB, JDF, the energy ministry, Planning Institute and the SRC seem to have suffered complete collective amnesia, despite the millions of US dollars in imported petroleum fuel costs that Ram’s Horn and Constant Spring still continue to save this nation after 34 years of sustained, quiet, non-polluting operation.
Cooke is correct: Pumped storage is a route to take now. To my knowledge, appropriate examples of what to do abound throughout our hemisphere and in all but one of the countries and regions named earlier in this letter.
More anon.
Dennis A Minott, PhD
Chairman and CEO
ENERPLAN Ltd
prudent_one_ja@yahoo.com