Friday, the 9th Caribbean Renewable Energy Forum (CREF 2017) has completed its third and final day of activities at the JW Marriott Marquis in Miami.

During this forum, which brought together more than 500 participants from around 50 countries, the emphasis was laid on the provisions to be considered to make the Caribbean more resilient through renewable energies.

Haiti has a lot to learn from its neighbors as the Government works to engage the country in a new dynamic to increase the share of green renewable energy (solar, hydro, wind and biomass) by creating new independent micro-grids.

At this event, the Most Innovative Rural Project Award of the Caribbean, the most prestigious and coveted distinction of its category was awarded to Sigora Haiti, a subsidiary of Sigora International, based in San Francisco, which has been experimenting since 2015 with the prepaid meter system at Môle Saint-Nicolas and installed for the first time a micro-grid in this city in the north-west of Haiti, becoming the pioneer in this field.

Following the success of this first experience Sigora received $2.5 million from the Electrification Financing Initiative (ElectriFI) to extend its current network of 1,000 meters (± 5,000 users) to a new network that will serve tens thousands of other users. The financing includes the construction of a solar microgrid of 200 kilowatts.

Evenson Calixte, the President's Special Advisor on Energy Technology, congratulated Sigora Haiti for the implementation of its micro-network in Mole Saint-Nicolas and said that the government will be inspired by this method of prepayment with smart meters and anti-fraud in the micro-grids he intends to install across the country.

Julie Taylor, the organizer of the forum said about the Sigora project "This is a model that other Caribbean islands can learn from, because the challenges in rural areas in these islands are almost the same."

HL/ HaitiLibre