In order to finance the construction of Renewstable Barbados, a 50 MW solar production plant with green hydrogen and lithium-ion battery storage that will supply clean electricity to the Barbados grid, IFC and IDB Invest are collaborating with Hydrogène de France (HDF) and Rubis.
IFC will offer geotechnical, hydrological, and environmental life-cycle assessments under a Collaboration Agreement, enhancing the project’s bankability for foreign investors who will fund its construction in 2023. IDB Invest has contributed funding to a portion of the project’s Environmental and Social Impact Assessment, which will be completed in accordance with IFC’s globally regarded standards.
Following one that is already under construction in French Guiana, this project is the second of its sort that HDF has created in the area.
Despite being built on already existing technologies, creating green hydrogen and using it to use fuel cells to turn it back into power has been prohibitively expensive. Nevertheless, the ongoing decline in the price of renewable energy, which accounts for roughly 70% of the cost of creating green hydrogen, has generated a lot of interest in and initiatives to construct green hydrogen projects all over the world.
In distant islands where the existing alternatives, like heavy fuel oil diesel-based generating, are pricey, polluting, and make the countries dependent on fuel imports, green hydrogen as an electricity storage solution is already alluring.
