Mitigating Climate Risk for Renewable Energy Infrastructures

Devon Gardner

Stakeholders within the energy sector must also take into account the vulnerabilities physical infrastructures within the Caribbean face from weather systems such as hurricanes and floods. Doctor Gardner noted that solar energy infrastructures are just as susceptible to hurricanes and other natural disasters, which could potentially lead to a disruption in energy supply, if the right mitigation measures are not implemented.

Dr. Devon Gardner, Policy Expert

“One of the issue you mentioned around hurricanes and storms and so on has to do with the vulnerability of the energy system. Significant portions of the energy system are vulnerable to hydro meteorological hazards such as storms, hurricanes, floods. WE have seen cases, you yourselves in Belize, when there is a tropical storm, the electric grid which sits out there in the middle of the environment can be torn down by high winds. Polls can get rotted by floods which might have stagnated water around them for a while. Much of the system substation gets flooded. If we start to introduce solar system, hurricanes and storms can damage the panels and infrastructure there. So, we recognize like other infrastructure, electricity infrastructure, and other energy infrastructure, including ports, and the delivery facility for fuels are at risk to storm and hurricanes and all kind of hydro meteorological hazards. So, what we are trying to do is through the policy is to address, something we have been doing in a more informal way , how do we build planning that takes into account the challenges the infrastructure we have already are facing, and the risk any planned infrastructure for the future might likely face. So, in a sense we are doing quite a bit forecasting.”