Rolando González-Bunster: Our growth is focused in clean, low carbon and renewable energy, and taking the leadership of electric mobility throughout the Caribbean, Central America, South America.

During his participation at The Madrid Energy Virtual Conference, our Chief Executive Officer & Chairman, Rolando González-Bunster, talked about how our growth is focused in clean, low carbon and renewable energy, and taking the leadership of electric mobility throughout the Caribbean, Central America, South America.  Here are the main messages he shared:

Clean Energy Transition

“We are right now synchronizing 300 MW in the Dominican Republic to LFG.

For that purpose, we went into partnership with AES and built a 55 km gas pipeline between the AES terminal and a 900 MW power plant that exists in an area called San Pedro de Macoris.

At the same time, back in 2013, we announced that we would convert and build as much renewable energy as possible at the Clinton Global Initiative session in Rio de Janeiro.

We proceeded to invest in Panama and build the largest wind farm in Central America and the Caribbean and a 250 MW wind farm called Laudato Sí. Then we made a 45 MW solar facility in David, in the west of Panama.

At the Clinton Initiative, we also decided to invest in renewables outside the Caribbean and Central America. We went to Chile, and now we are about to enter Uruguay, where we have acquired 40 MW of wind power.

In the Dominican Republic, we have developed originally 80 MW of wind power, and we have now acquired a wind farm of 50 MW.

Our goal is clean, low carbon, renewable, and to top it all, we decided to invest over 100 million dollars into this effort, with a specific focus on electric mobility. In the Dominican Republic, we already have 150 charging stations, and we will get to 500 by the end of next year. We are making the same effort in Panama, and hopefully, we will launch soon in Chile, Uruguay, and Jamaica.

So this is where InterEnergy will be in about ten years, in a different world where transportation is mainly electric, where energy production in the Caribbean, Central America, South America is mostly low carbon energy. That is where we are. that is where we are now”.

Electric Mobility

“When we started promoting electric vehicles, the big issue was that people had anxiety about where they could charge, how far they should go. So we decided to install different types of chargers all over the country so people will recover the confidence in electric mobility.

Right now, in Evergo, we are near 2,000 clients, and we developed a very sophisticated app which allows you to know where the chargers are, pay through a virtual wallet, and everywhere you see an Evergo charger if you have the app all you got to do is use your phone, put it near the charger and then it will activate it for payment.

There’s an international standard like roaming. You can use this app in the Dominican Republic, or Jamaica, or Panama, the United States, or even countries in Europe to rent an electric car and charge it to your Evergo wallet. So, as we get more sophisticated, it will make it easier for the user.

It was ten years ago that the iPhone did not exist. Technology moves very quickly. We feel that what started as a zero vehicle population for electric vehicles in the Dominican Republic will increase to 5,000 cars by the end of next year. In the next five years, we should be over 100,000 electric vehicles. And by then, we will be the first company to have the chargers and getting the best locations”.

Strategic alliances

“In the Dominican Republic, we aligned with Banco Popular, the largest private bank in this country, with the shared mission to make it easy for people who want to buy electric cars to get suitable financing.

Now there’s a new president of the Dominican Republic promoting electric mobility, and we installed an Evergo charger in the National Palace charging all the electric cars that he’s having.

I want electric vehicles to become 10% of the whole country; immediately; you create a market. So it would be best if you had a government conviction on this. We’re going to do that in Jamaica because the authorities want to go to a fifty percent clean energy economy by 2030.

In Panama, we have a system where a hundred percent of what we sell under SER (Sistema de Energía Renovable) is 100% renewable energy to large clients. We plan to do the same for cars. If you want to charge a vehicle in an Evergo charger in Panama, you’ll be charging with the sun, or the wind or Hydro; all renewable. And that’s the future”.