During a festive ribbon-cutting ceremony, NRG Energy, Inc., one of the largest solar companies in the U.S., celebrated the installation of the Spanish Town Estate Solar Project on the island of St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
By harnessing the island's bountiful sunlight, the Spanish Town Estate facility stands ready to generate 4 MW-ac of clean, emission-free energy, enough to power the homes of approximately 1,500 customers of the U.S. Virgin Island Water and Power Authority (WAPA). The ground-mounted photovoltaic power plant is positioned on 17 acres in Estate Spanish Town, and is connected directly to the new Gregory E. Willocks Substation at the same location.
NRG executives joined representatives from project partners Toshiba International Corporation and WAPA to tour the Spanish Town Estate facility and the new substation after the official ribbon-cutting. The Spanish Town Estate project will be an important step toward the U.S. Virgin Islands and St. Croix achieving their renewable energy goal to reduce fossil fuel-based energy consumption by 60 percent over the next decade. During construction, the project created nearly 100 direct and indirect jobs and injected an estimated $3 million into the local economy.
"Now home to NRG's first solar facility in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Spanish Town Estate stands out as an example of how Caribbean nations can tap the power of the sun to provide clean energy to residents without compromising the island's natural beauty," said Edouard MacGuffie, vice president of development, NRG Renew Caribbean region. "At NRG Renew, we are proud to celebrate this milestone alongside our partners and we look forward to bringing the power of solar energy to other Caribbean nations looking to follow the precedent we set here in St. Croix."
"Like several of the other green energy initiatives that the Authority is pursuing, this project will result in lowering energy costs for our customers," said Hugo Hodge Jr., executive director, U.S. Virgin Island Water and Power Authority. "It will generate clean, reliable solar power for delivery to WAPA customers, and help the Virgin Islands and St. Croix achieve our renewable energy goals for the coming years."
"With the Spanish Town Estate facility, Toshiba worked with project owner NRG and continued with our mission to bring environmentally friendly options for energy generation to the U.S. Virgin Islands," said Mark Lonkevych, business unit manager at Toshiba. "Since we signed our initial agreement with WAPA in 2012, Toshiba has been proud of the progress we have made and how the Spanish Town Estate facility maintains the pristine beauty of the island which was not compromised by economic factors and the detrimental effects of importing and using fossil fuels."
While Toshiba served as the lead engineering, procurement and construction through completion, NRG, through its subsidiaries, is now the sole owner of the Spanish Town Estate facility. This project, which is NRG's first public solar facility in the U.S. Virgin Islands, highlights a commitment to the region and expands NRG's efforts in the Caribbean, which also include solar projects in Haiti; a solar installation which will begin next year in St. John and a microgrid installation under development on Necker Island.
