NIA CHARLESTOWN NEVIS (December 06, 2013) — President and Chief Executive Officer of Nevis Renewable Energy International (NRE International) Mr. Thomas Drolet said his company (was making real headway in its negotiations with the Nevis Island Administration for the development of geothermal energy on Nevis.
Mr. Drolet’s comment came when he addressed the media at a press conference at the Red Cross conference room, hosted by the NIA to present the principals of NRE International, the company it had selected among three bidders to undertake the geothermal energy development project on the island.
“What we are doing here this time is making real progress towards the elements required to make this project a success. We are putting down on paper gradually, all of the individual steps that we will do, the Government will do and other parties will do. We want to get that formula, the recipe right and you can’t rush that… We are going to do it right if I have anything to do with it and we are going to get it done sequentially right,” he said.
However, Mr. Drolet noted that the project would entail three phases and gave some insight into the development.
“There are three phases. Once the agreements are signed and I hope that’s in the very near future, very near future, we are going to get the money rolling in so that we can get the drilling going and once the drilling defines the reservoir, I have to tell you a touch of technology, the reason you drill these production wells prior to doing any other work on the design of the plant, you have to know the pressure, the temperature and the quality of the steam that comes up.
“If you don’t know those three elements, you can’t design your plant you can’t even decide what kind of plant to put up there. So these are the things we are going to do. Once the reservoir attributes are known we can design the plant and the plant building process is very quick – 18 months,” he said.
The detail design of the plant will be done by Tetra Tech. NREI’s engineering procurement construction contractor, and Alter Rock will be responsible for the drilling process and the financing will be done by the NREI team with the help of others.
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