POWER March 2021 - 10

GLOBAL MONITOR
thority has embarked on a $20 billion
plan to rebuild the island's power grid.
The initiative includes a commitment to
generate 40% of the island's power from
renewable resources by 2025, and 100%
by 2050. C&I enterprises using distributed
power generation are a large part of
the effort.
" Puerto Rico is a core market for Enernet
and we are excited to be embarking
on this project with Neolpharma.
This CHP plant will reduce emissions by
30%, or more than 8,000 tons of CO2
per
year, " said Paul Matthews, Enernet CEO,
in an interview with POWER. " Our mission
is to drive the energy transition in
Puerto Rico for years to come, bringing
our energy-as-a-service model to industrials
and communities. This delivers savings
and significant carbon reductions
while providing more resilient systems
and energy independence-all at no
capital cost. "
Enernet will build, own, and operate
the plant, which is set to begin operating
this month. The company is working
with Logic Energy, AM Electric, and engine
provider 2G Energy to deploy the
3.4-MW CHP system, which will provide
both electricity and steam to Neolpharma,
a subsidiary of a Mexican pharmaceutical
manufacturer, under a 12-year
power purchase agreement.
The Puerto Rico project is among
the on- and off-grid generation projects
the company has deployed in the Caribbean,
Australia, the Philippines, and
sub-Saharan Africa. The projects include
renewable energy, battery storage, cogeneration,
and upgrades to existing
thermal or grid supply.
Philip Henry de Frahan, Enernet's vice
president
of
Business Development,
added, " This system will be commissioned
in March 2021. We are incredibly
thankful to partners AM Electric, Logic
Energy, and 2G for delivering the project
in a record five-month timeframe from
start to finish. "
Marco Monrouzeau, vice president of
Administration and CFO for Neolpharma,
said, " This plant will improve power reliability
for our facility and enable us to
reduce operating costs and achieve
emissions reduction targets. "
Matthews said Puerto Rico, because
so much of the country's energy infrastructure
has had to be rebuilt, has an
opportunity to use the latest technology
and achieve other goals while upgrading
its power production and delivery systems.
" Everyone these days, thankfully
and happily, has ESG [environmental, so10
cial,
and governance] goals, and targets
for greenhouse gas reduction. What's
also important is that people want to pay
less for their power, and that there is reliability
and sustainability ... to ensure that
there are no frequency or voltage issues,
whether it's a hotelier in the Philippines,
or a pharmaceutical company in Puerto
Rico, at the end of the day, they all want
to replace thermal [power] and reduce
emissions, and save money. " Matthews
said that also means companies are considering
a range of technologies to accomplish
those goals, and noted, " The
focus of the [COVID-19] pandemic has
brought even more focus toward reliability
and cost reduction. "
The pandemic also amplified the increased
need for more cold storage capacity
in Puerto Rico, and the island-wide
shortage of warehouse space. " Puerto
Rico has always been very important
to Viking Cold Solutions. Our first warehouse
installation was on this beautiful
island, and it's appropriate that our first
new cold storage construction project be
right here in Cidra, " said Paul Robbins,
the founder of Viking Cold Solutions.
Construction of the Isla Frio project
began in June 2020. Robbins noted it is
the company's first system installation
to be part of a facility's original design
and construction plan; previous installations
have been facility retrofit projects.
The TES technology means carbon emissions
and energy use is minimized, power
resilience and flexibility are increased,
and electricity costs are lowered. The
building is still connected to a large diesel
generator to provide backup power,
but during extended grid interruptions
or power outages, the generator and its
fuel can be conserved because the TES
technology provides built-in temperature
resilience to protect food up to several
days without power.
Matthews said designing systems for
C&I customers is never a " one-size-fitsall
process, " but rather requires a look
at several factors to determine the best
solution. " We're not a fixed solution
provider, " he said. " It's not just rooftop
solar, or just CHP ... it's about tailoring
the system that best meets their requirements.
CHP makes sense in Puerto
Rico because there is a lot of natural
gas available, but not a lot of space " for
large projects. " We're looking at solar
and storage solutions in Puerto Rico
where there is some space " for a larger
development, " in areas where customers
are looking to reduce their pricing,
reduce their emissions. "
www.powermag.com
Matthews noted the island nation's
long-standing problems with electricity
reliability have figured into today's planning.
" The beauty of the CHP system
[for a business] is, it's baseload, it can
provide 95% of load, and it's removing
the need to burn diesel. In the case of
Neolpharma, we set out to design a
system to best meet their load and cost
requirements, where we would finance,
own, and operate, using gas to provide
cheaper electricity, and meet their steam
and heat load requirements. " He said
the company is doing similar work in the
Philippines. " There are a lot of islands,
and while a lot of the big ones have their
own utilities, often they're only providing
eight to 12 hours of power [each day].
What we do is, we go in and build a power
plant using their legacy generation,
adding solar plus storage, and where
there might be existing generation we
give them 24/7 firm power. "
-Darrell Proctor is associate
editor for POWER.
Wärtsilä Project Moves Forward,
but Challenges Remain for
Renewables in Mexico
Mexico reformed its energy market
in 2013, opening the country's energy
sector to private investment. It created
opportunities for foreign companies to
bring their expertise to Mexico, particularly
in the renewable energy sector, a
trend continuing today despite challenges
to foreign investment from the country's
current government, and a more
recent effort that could deal another serious
blow to renewable energy projects.
The country's first three clean energy
auctions, held in 2016 and 2017,
were considered successful, as major
solar and wind developers, including
EDF and Enel Green Power from
Europe, SunPower from the U.S., and
JinkoSolar from China, came into the
market and drove electricity prices
down. That changed when Andrés
Manuel López Obrador-known by his
acronym, AMLO-took over as Mexico's
president in December 2018. His
government, considered a center-left
nationalist group, immediately moved
to undo market liberalization measures
carried out by the previous government
of Enrique Peña Nieto. AMLO's administration
has focused on supporting
state-owned utility Comisión Federal
de Electricidad (CFE); among the president's
actions was canceling a fourth
clean energy auction within days after
his election. That has slowed renewable
POWER | March 2021
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POWER March 2021

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