The challenge

The energy deficit and dependence on fossil fuels drove the Dominican Republic to step up its commitment to energy. To this regard, Dominion took on the task of building the largest photovoltaic plant in this Caribbean country, with an offer that included everything from the design and construction of the plant to its operation and subsequent maintenance. The project included various additional challenges:

• The project completion deadline was only 11 months.
• The plant plot, a small area of 90 hectares, with little margin to coordinate construction and the stockpiling of materials and almost 201,000 solar panels that form the plant
• Logistical and supply challenges: there are not many energy, logistics and supply infrastructures.
• The weather: the rainy season brings torrential rain from May to November, which complicates vehicle traffic, construction and operations.
• Lack of specialist labour.

DOMINION's +

Dominion managed the turnkey project starting with complete planning work with the intention of implementing the project with maximum efficiency ratios. This meant that the following actions could be performed in the construction stage:

• Designing a work plan, based on experience from previous projects and specific characteristics of the case so as to coordinate the various activities with logistics to minimise waiting times.
• Building a water channel network to evacuate torrential rainfall in the area and to prevent any flooding that could cause delays and subsequent damage to equipment in the production stage.
• Dividing the area into sectors for careful coordination of the construction work and the panel stockpiling tasks, and to carry out both tasks simultaneously.
• Building a concrete plant at the construction site to prevent any concrete delays in supplies from local suppliers.
• Building a road for access to the worksite.
• Creating a personnel rotation plan to guarantee staff are on site at all times.

Results

The largest photovoltaic plant in the Dominican Republic, with 66.8MWp of installed capacity, was inaugurated within a year of its construction being started. Thanks to the success of this project, Dominion has positioned itself as a benchmark collaborator for the 12 electricity generation projects that are expected to be awarded in the country soon.

The photovoltaic plant is estimated to cover the energy consumption demand of almost 80,000 people in the region and that it will prevent the emission of 50,000 tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere.

Dominion will perform the operation and maintenance tasks at the plant for the next 20 years.