Demonstration Of Smart Energy Buildings For Barbados Project

• Investor: Republic of Korea
• Category: Sustainability
• Value: $6.075 M grant
• Status: Implementation

The broad objective of this project is the deployment of Smart Energy Buildings in Barbados. The specific objective is the reduction in power consumption and peak load demand and the concomitant reduction in CO₂ emissions. These buildings are intended to serve as models for future deployment of smart technologies such as additional smart buildings, smart grids and smart cities.

The Ministry of Trade, Energy and Industry of Korea (MOTIE) has allocated  USD$3 million (BBD$6.075 million) in grant funding for the installation and demonstration of smart energy building systems for public buildings in Barbados, and capacity building for Barbadian engineers. The supporting Korean Government agency is the Korea Institute of Energy Technology Evaluation Planning (KETEP).  The Korean agency assigned to manage the project is the Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) which is a publicly owned utility. KEPCO proposes to sub-contract Any Gate, which is a private sector technology provider.

The Technical Cooperation for the Demonstration of Smart Energy Buildings is broken down under the proposed following four Components:

Component I – Development of optimized energy management systems – This component will facilitate the design of an advanced EMS which would provide beneficiaries with a comprehensive understanding of the energy consumption of their physical plant and provide for the optimal control of energy supply and demand.  The component will also be focused on the development of an operational algorithm which would be optimised for the local environment.

Component II – Demonstration of the system – This component will support the data collection, detailed site design, procurement, installation, testing, commissioning, operation and maintenance.

Component III – Capacity building – This component will support capacity building in the public and private sector.  The component will offer repetitive on-site training, local training sessions and workshops, on-site training in Korea, institutional strengthening and public awareness.

Component IV – Business model development – This component will support an economic analysis and business model development for local and regional energy industries.

Based on the smart building selection criteria, the following building were selected for the pilot project:

• Frank Walcott Building (NIS);
• Administration Building, Cave Hill Campus, University of the West Indies (UWI).

The project has identified goals of:

• reduction in power consumption of 15%;
• reduction in peak load by 10%;
• reduction in CO₂ emissions of 15%. 

The project was approved by the Cabinet of Barbados in March 2019 and is currently in the implementation phase. To date, Smart Meters have been deployed at the two selected sites for the collection of energy consumption data. Training on Smart Buildings and Smart Grids was also undertaken in October 2019, in the Republic of Korea.