St. Maarten Private Eye

Gebe power plant currently has capacity of approx. 75 Mw and additional capacity is required. To give you an idea what we are talking about if you want to switch to wind energy completely, take a look at the informative website of Holland newest wind park under construction Q7 with a capacity of 120 Mw.(in English) It is currently being built about 23 km2 of the coast and should be commissioned in 2008.

For the lazy bums that don't want to explore that site, here is some data:

Wind turbines: 60 Vestas V80 wind turbines of 2 MW each
Capacity: 120 MW
Water depth: 19 - 24 meters
Distance from shore: 23 kilometers
Surface area: 14 km²
Hub height: 59 meters
Rotor diameter: 80 meters
Start construction: Second half 2006
Commissioning and start production: First quarter 2008
Annual power production: 435 GWh
CO2-emissions avoidance: 225.000 tonnes/year
Enough to power: 125.000 households

Total cost is 350 million Euro. When you consider the above data, the challenges we face are many. First, we don't have enough empty land left for even a park half the size so we must either built in the seas or confiscate Statia and run a cable. If we built in the seas, depth is a problem if we want to create distance from our shores to avoid visibility. It is not a pretty sight for the tourist. Depth will drive up the cost. Finding the financing for a project of this magnitude will also be extremely hard. Wind energy is certainly an option for other countries. Unfortunately, I don't see it happen for Sint Maarten anytime soon.