Grenada’s Minister for Climate Resilience, the Environment and Renewable Energy, Hon. Kerryne James has announced that Grenada, through the Ministry of Climate Resilience, the Environment and Renewable Energy – is currently in discussions with the Ireland-based Seabased Group, for the development and deployment of a pilot commercial-scale two-megawatt (2 MW) Wave Power Park.

Minister James made the announcement while leading a briefing session on 31 May 2023, for member countries of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS).

That session was held on the margins of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA)-Caribbean Cooperation for Fostering Energy Transition Investments and Finance event, from May 30 to June 1, 2023, at the Hilton Resort, Barbados.

Minister James said “Seabased Group’s proven wave energy technology has the capacity to help Small Island Developing States (SIDS) lower energy cost, significantly reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and most importantly, help countries achieve and surpass their ambitions under the 2015 Paris agreement, and meet their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC’s) before 2030. SIDS are more and more pivoting to ocean energy as we are all fast running out of land for deployment of solar and other land- based energy technologies. The ocean is our largest renewable source of energy, and it can provide us with the energy we need to transition our economies.”

Marcelle Askew, Vice President, Business Development, Seabased Group, informed the meeting that Seabased has assessed Grenada’s wave energy resource at an estimated “gigantic” 450 megawatts (MWs).

Grenada’s current installed capacity is 50 MWs with 48 MWs in new generating capacity required in the coming decade. “The deployment of a 40 MW park can potentially provide over 60 percent of Grenada’s energy needs, cutting current CO2 emissions by 35 percent, and exceeding the country’s NDC target of 30 percent reduction, corresponding to 114 KT, and has the potential to displace approximately 42 million litres of fuel with local, clean energy that provides considerable baseload power every day, from the waves off the coast of Grenada,” Ms. Askew said.

In her opening remarks, Minister James told the audience, which included the Hon. Mr. Walter Roban JP, MP, Deputy Premier and Minister for Home Affairs, Government of Bermuda, and delegates from OECS countries, that Seabased has provided “the evidence of a technology that can capture the energy generated from the waves coming to the shores of SIDS and turning that energy into electricity for their populations at a lower cost.”

She said that Grenada will note the lessons learned from the Government of Bermuda, which signed an agreement with Seabased Group on the heels of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of Parties (COP 26) climate talks in 2021, for the development of what could be the world’s first utility-scale commercial ocean wave power park. With a 40 MW capacity, the Seabased Bermuda Wave Power Park will feed the island’s grid, providing roughly 10 percent of Bermuda’s energy needs.

Bermuda’s Deputy Premier, Hon Walter Roban JP, noted that to facilitate the development and deployment of the wave power park, the government passed legislation in 2022, referred to as the “Sandbox”.

He said the legislation, which was an amendment to Bermuda’s Electricity Act, “laid the groundwork for a Center of Excellence in Innovation, so that companies like Seabased can come to Bermuda and test new technologies that are necessary for the world and our islands to win the battle against climate change, and to show that we have independent clean energy futures.” Bermuda created the Regulatory Sandbox for this purpose, as none of the projects in the Sandbox are currently in Bermuda’s Integrated Resource Plan (IRP).

He further stated that we have to find a way to chart our future around innovation, and this, he said, was why the Sandbox was created.

In her closing remarks, Minister James encouraged member countries of the OECS, who have been presented with the potential for Seabased Wave Power Parks, and countries that have been assessed with wave energy resources, to seriously consider joining the SIDS Wave Power Programme under the Global Ocean Energy Alliance (GLOEA – gloea.org), being executed by the SIDS DOCK Secretariat and its global partners.