Above: the terminal at the under-construction Argyle International Airport (CJ Photo)

By the Caribbean Journal staff

The new planned airport in St Vincent and the Grenadines will derive part of its energy needs from solar energy.

The Argyle International Airport, set to debut in St Vincent later this year, will be creating a 218 kVa solar energy farm.

The farm would initially generate about 35 percent of the airport’s solar light and air-conditioning needs.

On Monday, the CARICOM Development Fund announced a $750,000 USD loan for the project.

“It will be the first part of a wider programme of power generation to meet the needs of the AIA at peak demand and full operation and it is expected that at full generation any excess electricity will be made available through the grid to the rest of St Vincent,” said Ambassador Lorne McDonnough, the CEO of the CDF. “The CDF is promoting greening, or environmentally friendly energy projects in the region and is striving to establish the plant at Argyle as a flagship for the initiative.”

That would make St Vincent’s Argyle the second airport in the region to be solar powered, following the debut of the solar farm at St Kitts’ Robert L Bradshaw International Airport.