Powering Clean and Affordable Energy through Geothermal Integration: A Case Study on Dominica.

Caribbean economies are particularly vulnerable to climate change. While developed nations are actively making strides in becoming more sustainable, small island developing states in the Caribbean face many hurdles. Hence, this study presents techno-economic and environmental assessments to inform on sustainable options for affordable and clean energy on the island of Dominica. Four cases were explored using both current and future indicators: levelized electricity (LCOE) costs, product annualized costs (TAC) and environmental impacts. Our results illustrate that with 100% deployment of geothermal energy, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and LCOE can be reduced by 99.5% and 70% respectively. Furthermore, diversification linked to production of methanol and ammonia gave environmental benefits, but were infeasible based on current fossil-based prices. Ultimately, the most sustainable option was energy exportation from Dominica to Martinique via subsea transmission, leading to a 20% decrease in LCOE and 2.5 million tonne CO2-eq/year avoided emissions.