Just last week, the Regulatory Authority awarded an operating license to the developers of the project, Saturn Solar Bermuda 1, the Bermudian subsidiary of Saturn Power Incorporated. This is a significant milestone for the project. When the bids were submitted, Saturn’s bid was the lowest compliant bid, at 10.3 cents per kilowatt-hour.
Construction began to install the solar panels on May 24th, 2019. The transmission cable on land is about 1 kilometer long, and the submarine cable is nearly 2 kilometers long and connects the solar farm to the grid at the Civil Aviation Substation on Kindley Field Road.
While the project was developed by Saturn, a Canadian company, the project was made possible by our local companies consisting of more than 50% Bermudian workers. Bermudian companies working on the site included Noesis Consulting, Ltd, Crisson Engineering, Island Construction Services, Butterfield Excavation, Onsite Engineering, Security Associates, Fast Forward Freight, Bermuda Forwarders and D&J Construction. Moving ahead, the project will be operated by Saturn with the support of a Bermudian Operations and Maintenance contractor.
The project will deliver power to the grid, not to the Airport, and will not be customer-specific. It is estimated that it will power the equivalent of about eleven hundred [1,100] homes per annum, stabilizing some of our volatile fuel costs and ultimately save about 150,000 tons of CO2.
