AMALA Clean Energy Advisors was once again a key sponsor of the 12th GeoLAC Regional Geothermal Congress and the first Clean Firm Power Summit held in Mexico City on February 11 and 12, 2026 co-hosted by New Energy Events and the World Bank. GeoLAC is a regional gathering of industry experts that are supporting the geothermal development in the region. The topics covered during the events cover technical aspect, financing and risk mitigation, environmental and social issues – all aimed at scaling up the technology in the region as a reliable clean source of baseload energy.
AMALA’s Managing Director, Migara Jayawardena, who was a speaker at the event, was a founding member of the event when he was an official at the World Bank. Mr. Jayawardena stated that “we (New Energy Events and the World Bank) started this event as a platform for sharing regional experiences in geothermal development and to also disseminate information on global best practices in deploying the technology”. AMALA’s geothermal resource expert, Paolo Bona, who was also in attendance at the event observed that “the regional dialog on industry practices has progressively improved over the past decade with GeoLAC being an important contributor, which is leading to better informed policy formulations and investment decisions”.
While there were many regional geothermal achievements, one that stood out was the upcoming commissioning of a 10 MW facility in Dominica, which will be the first new capacity in the Caribbean sub-region in over 30 years. AMALA, partnering with GeothermEx and Power Engineers, serve as the Lender Technical Advisor (LTA) to the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) and the CARICOM Development Fund (CDF), who are financing the project, which is a public-private partnership between the Government of Dominica and Ormat Technologies. Mr. Vince Henderson, the Energy Minister for Dominica, who was a speaker at GeoLAC, noted how challenging it was to develop this project that took many years, but that he is looking forward to reaping its benefits through lower electricity costs for the island nation.
Another Caribbean nation that is poised to make headway is Saint Kitts and Navis (SKN). The prospective resource, which has been identified to be more prolific in the island of Nevis, still need to be proven at an investment grade, for which they are preparing to proceed with an exploration drilling program. The Premier of Nevis, who was also a speaker at the event, reinforced their commitment indicating strong public support for the project where the expectations are impatiently high. Developing geothermal in SKN adds a further complexity as it would require the separate power systems in the two islands to be interconnected through an undersea cable and strong coordination between the two respective utilities operating on each island. With present plans to mobilize a private developer post-exploration, “any deal structure would require prior resolution to constructing and operating the inter-island interconnection, as it would be the basis for managing developer risks selling electricity to multiple utilities” noted AMALA’s Managing Director.
AMALA’s Managing Director informed the audience during his presentation about an upcoming publication they produced for the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States Commission (OECS) GeoBuild Program that takes a comprehensive look at the past 20 years of geothermal development efforts in the region and draws lessons from experience. Together with global good industry practices in geothermal development, the Lessons Handbook provides a roadmap for those looking to develop the technology.
The heightened need regionally and globally for expanding firm power from cleaner sources to meet rapidly expanding demand from industries such as high tech’s energy needs for data centers to power artificial intelligence (AI) is placing a spotlight on baseload generation options such as geothermal and hydropower along with other storage solutions. Therefore, the combined firm power and geothermal seminars were a timely gathering of regional and global experts to discuss an extremely topical issue.
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