Bonaire and Curaçao experienced widespread prolonged power outages in the past few days for different reasons, respectively a fire in one of the production plants and a malfunctioning main cable connection. Neither incident was directly linked to the Caribbean heat wave that also sparked an advisory from St. Maarten’s Fire Department and Office of Disaster Management (ODM) in Thursday’s paper.
Nevertheless, high temperatures increase demand for electricity and put pressure on available capacity. Moreover, this is actually the time when necessary maintenance is often done to prepare for the usually hottest months of July through September.
Whether the unseasonally early weather has anything to do with global warming is yet to be confirmed. However, it seems something that might have to be considered going forward.
For the so-called ABC islands (Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao) there is an added issue. They rely on wind turbines for a significant part of their energy consumption and when there is hardly a breeze this can lead to extra complications.
The latter also means one has to carefully plan a transition from fossil fuels to alternative, sustainable sources. Windmills and solar panels are great, but if atmospheric conditions strongly reduce their output there must be enough supply left.
This “production mix” problem is compounded by few possibilities to effectively store, for example, large amounts energy generated from the sun during the day for use at night. The technology to do so is still limited and relatively expensive, such as with high-grade battery systems that could themselves create an environmental hazard.
It may be assumed that government’s energy strategy being worked on with GridMarket duly takes all these factors into account. Funding made available by the European Union (EU) and the Netherlands to fight climate change is in any case most welcome, because – no matter how you look at it – “going green” will initially cost a lot of money to do it right.
