Former Energy Chamber chief executive officer Dr Dax Driver has raised questions as to whether Trinidad and Tobago has the energy generation capacity to supply the proposed data centres.
Last week, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar said that a consortium led by Hummingbird AI had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Government to develop a 150-megawatt data centre, while another consortium led by Ernst & Young is proposing a 300-megawatt facility, the Trinidad Guardian reported yesterday.
When contacted for a comment on the development on Fiday, Dr Driver pointed to an article on data centres in Trinidad he authored which was published on the Caribbean Energy website entitled ‘Gas to gigabytes: at what price?’
In the article, Driver acknowledged the online debate about the development and while he pushed back against what he described as a defeatist attitude in some of the arguments, given T&T’s ability to build industry, particular in energy, he did have some concerns about the proposed data centres, the Trinidad Guardian reported.
He said, “There is a fundamental issue that does deeply concern me about the proposed data centres which I do not think is going to be easily overcome. In Trinidad, any discussion about electricity needs to always be taken back one step further and placed in the context of the gas industry.”
Driver pointed to the recent natural gas supply issues at Point Lisas as a major red flag with regard to that development.
“Given that we have just seen the shutdown of a world-scale ammonia complex, operated by Nutrien, and the second of the two methanol plants operated by Methanex, because of an inability to negotiate gas supply contracts at affordable prices, this statement needs to be challenged. We do not have an abundant supply, unless we deliberately close down more of the industries currently using natural gas, he said.
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