BARBADOS NATIONAL OIL COMPANY GENERAL MANAGER WINTON GIBBS (LEFT) AND RENEWABLE ENERGY OFFICER RICHARD GODDARD (RIGHT) DISCUSSING THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE ALTERNATIVE FUELS PILOT STATION.
BARBADIAN ENERGY VISION Sustainable Business Magazine speaks to Richard Goddard, Renewable Energy Officer at Barbados National Oil Company Ltd, about an oil company which sees opportunities in renewables. The Barbados National Oil Company (BNOC) has sole responsibility for exploiting Barbados’ onshore petroleum reserves. Founded in 1983 and wholly owned by the state, the average production was around 1,200 barrels of crude a day until the turn of the millennium, progressively declining since then to around 1,000 b/d. On top of this, BNOC also extracts around 2,000 million cubic feet of natural gas per day. In the aftermath of the world financial crisis in 2008, BNOC has been moving towards diversifying their operations. In 12 | SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS MAGAZINE
2010, the company’s Renewable Energy Department was created, with a mandate to invest in renewable energy projects and programs. “Principally, our interest has been in solar,” explains Richard Goddard, Renewable Energy Officer at BNOC. “But we’re interested in renewable energy any way we can get it. We have some on-stream projects related to wind. We’re looking at switching out some of our older pumping units to use those to generate renewable energy, either through wind or solar. We’ve
also been investigating the use of biogas to augment our natural gas production.” ROOFTOP SOLAR Currently, BNOC has 150kW of solar PV installed at their main Woodbourne facility, spread over the rooftops of two buildings. “We did 150kW as that was the maximum allowed at the time, based on the relationship between our utility and our regulator,” says Mr. Goddard. “We also have another 150kW at our sister company, the National Petroleum Corporation, which