St. Thomas’ New Marriott Resort Is Powered by Clean Energy
By Alexander Britell
It’s the biggest new resort project in the US Virgin Islands, and the new Frenchman’s Reef dual-property destination resort is unique in another way: it’s powered by clean energy.
The Marriott resort, which is opening soon and will include both a Westin and Autograph Collection-branded resort, is powered by a clean oil free energy solution from E-Finity Distributed Generation.
Comprised of (3) five bay Capstone C800S microturbines the plant will provide 100 percent of the Resort’s power generating millions of dollars in annual electric cost savings while slashing the resort’s carbon emission footprint associated with island grid power.
This 2.4 MW power plant designed by E-Finity will have “an inherit N+1 redundancy by utilizing the multiple C200 unit configuration in each of the C800 units to provide primary power to the nearly 500 room resort,” according to E-Finity.
The turbines themselves are expandable to 1000 kilowatt’s each with no need for additional real estate at the site giving the ownership the ability to add more rooms without having to increasing the powerplant footprint.
That means the hotel is “totally standalone, off-grid powered,” said Jeff Beiter, owner of E-Finity, meaning the plant will provide 100 percent of the power for the resort, at a fraction of the cost of the local utility power.
“There is zero lubrication, no petroleum in this power plant at all, no onsite storage, no spill containment and zero oil disposal is required,” he told Caribbean Journal Invest. “It’s clean, green and environmentally friendly.”
It’s the second major hotel project in collaboration with Triton Energy for E-Finity in St. Thomas, joining the island’s Margaritaville resort. E-Finity also installed and operates a microgrid at the Magens Junction residential development on the island.
More broadly in the Caribbean, E-Finity is also commissioning the facility at the highly-anticipated Walkers Cay private island in The Bahamas.
And while it’s more affordable, it’s also far more sustainable, with a substantially-reduced carbon footprint.
The project’s developer, Triton Energy, based in Lake Charles, Louisiana says it selected Capstone not only for their oil free, air lubricated, air cooled technology but also for their modular design which keeps the system running at high efficiency during partial load conditions.
“The multiple turbine configuration will allow the resort to stay at peak electrical performance during seasonal occupancy changes,” said Shack Hawkins, Executive Director of Triton Energy. “The low decibel noise levels and oil free operation of the microturbine-powered system dials right into helping the island achieve its sustainability goals.”
For more, contact Sales@E-Finity.com or visit www.e-finity.com.
