Antigua and Barbuda Distributed Energy Resources Deployment Guidelines

Antigua and Barbuda (A&B) is an island country, comprised of two namesake islands located in the Caribbean with approximately 94,000 inhabitants and an estimated annual growth rate of 1%. Its economy is primarily derived from the service industry with tourism being the largest contributor at around 80% of gross domestic product (GDP). A&B is exposed economically, environmentally, and socially to projected climate change impacts, such as greater intensity and frequency of hurricanes, more frequent droughts, high temperatures, and sea-level rise (Climate Analytics 2020). Between 2008 and 2017, the combined cost incurred to A&B from tropical storms and hurricanes was at least $232 million (U.S.) (Government of Antigua and Barbuda 2020). On average, hurricanes account for 8.4% of the annual loss in GDP for A&B (Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery 2017). On September 6, 2017, a Category 5 hurricane (Irma) hit Barbuda and destroyed 95% of the island’s structures, including its power generation capabilities. Energy resilience and security is an imperative for A&B (Mejia 2016).

The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory is providing technical assistance to the Government of A&B (GoAB), under the Global Climate Action Partnership, and their partners. This technical assistance is in support of the objectives of the GoAB, with the sponsorship of the Department of State in partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy, in two general areas:

1. Technical assistance for clean energy and resilience project development and implementation
2. Local capacity building and credentialling to support deployment of clean energy systems.

For the energy transition envisioned in A&B’s nationally determined contribution (NDC), grid-interactive renewable energy generation and storage forms an important part of the country’s pathway to a climate-resilient, low-emission economy. This report is provided to support the A&B’s Department of Environment with international codes, standards, and best practices for the design, construction, operation, and maintenance of distributed energy resources that could be implemented by the Antigua and Barbuda Bureau of Standards, the Antigua Public Utilities Authority (APUA), the Antigua and Barbuda Ministry of Energy, and other agencies.

Applications of renewable-based distributed energy resources (DERs) are growing day by day as they are becoming economical compared to fossil-fuel-based resources. Islands similar to A&B mainly rely on imported greenhouse gas (GHG)-emitting and expensive fossil-fuel-based resources to meet their electrical demands. The application of renewable resources such as solar photovoltaics (PV) for such islands could be a potential solution to reduce the dependency on fossil-fuel-based resources. However, there are technical challenges implementing renewablebased energy systems. There are limited technical resources available providing comprehensive detailed guidelines to aid power system operators and government officials in various aspects and considerations for the application of renewables. This document provides such guidelines aiming to aid the Department of Environment in planning for the integration of DERs into the existing system as well as for developing new projects.

This document lists (non-exhaustive) standards and guidelines that can be referred to for manufacturing of the equipment, integration, and procurement during the implementation of a project. This document also considers not only DERs but also associated critical components and related standards and technical specifications. These listed standards and technical specifications can be adopted to prepare documents such as requests for proposals.

This document also discusses how these DERs can be reliably and safely integrated and implemented as a microgrid to achieve the maximum benefits with coordinated control in the terms of resiliency, decarbonization and economics. Different conceptual design steps are highlighted at a very high level which can be considered for most of the typical microgrid use cases. Important electrical modeling and studies required for microgrid design and implementation are also briefly described in the document. Best practices applied by similar islands for microgrid implementation are also presented.

In order to ensure the overall safe and reliable operation of an island electrical system with integration of renewable- based resources, interconnection requirements need to be introduced and regulated by the utilities. Therefore, the critical factors to be considered to prepare the interconnection requirements are provided in this document.

The microgrid project involves a number of different stakeholders, which makes such projects complex and different from the other typical projects for electrical systems. It is very important to understand the roles and responsibilities of stakeholders for the success of the project. At the same time, the qualifications of the key resources involved in the microgrid project need to be identified. This document provides examples of roles and responsibilities of stakeholders to develop a project along with the qualifications of the project resources.

Finally, this document provides critical information associated with maintenance and warranty for the DERs and microgrid systems. How these can be specified and other related considerations are highlighted in the document.