Tag: Clean energy

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Branson’s Virgin Group Buys Hurricane-Wrecked Solar Farm to Help Rebuild Caribbean

Branson's Virgin Group Buys Hurricane-Wrecked Solar Farm to Help Rebuild Caribbean

Virgin Group’s BMR Energy announced Tuesday that it bought a 4-megawatt solar plant from NRG Energy, Inc. in St. Croix that was badly damaged during Hurricane Maria.

BMR Energy will take over the power purchase agreement and restoration efforts of the solar farm, the company said in a press release.

BMR Energy, which develops and operates clean energy projects in the Caribbean and Latin America, was purchased by Richard Branson’s Virgin Group in 2016.

“The world needs to find ways to introduce more resilient clean energy,” Branson said in the release. “The Caribbean has an abundance of clean energy sources, and BMR are taking great strides towards helping create zero-carbon energy supplies for years to come.”

Rebuilding the storm-wrecked region is a cause that is close to the Virgin founder. The billionaire businessman owns a private island in British Virgin Islands where he rode out both hurricanes Irma and Maria in the space of two weeks.

“I’ve never experienced anything quite like Hurricane Irma,” Branson said in an Instagram video in September. “It literally devastated the British Virgin Islands.”

My experience of Hurricane #Irma

A post shared by Richard Branson (@richardbranson) on


Continue reading full article by Lorraine Chow on  www.ecowatch.com.

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Caribbean Must Do Now: Dirty Energy to Clean Power

NECKER ISLAND, BVI. According to British billionaire, Richard Branson, low-carbon renewable energy conveniences should substitute old fossil fuel-dependent forms when the Caribbean islands are being rebuilt now.

Photo from @richardbranson

Reuters stated he approached the British and US governments and is mustering help from financial institutions like the Inter-American Development Bank and other philanthropists to set up a fund to help Caribbean nations.

“As part of that fund we want to make sure that the Caribbean moves from dirty energy to clean energy,” he said.

It has generally been the norm in Caribbean islands to create power by diesel burning – that forms global warming carbon dioxide, which will increase the frequency of freak weather events.

“I’ve been involved in talking out about climate change for a number of years now… I never thought I was going to be in the front line in quite the way I was two weeks ago,” he said at an event on fuel efficiency.

Branson has been a longtime champion of clean energy. Head of the Virgin Group conglomerate, he co-founded the Carbon War Room in 2009 to accelerate the implementation of business plans that reduce carbon discharges.

In reference to the U.S. program that helped rebuild Western Europe after World War Two, Branson mentioned in his blog that the Caribbean needed a “Disaster Recovery Marshall Plan” to aid in restoring and in long-term economic renewal. Continue reading “Caribbean Must Do Now: Dirty Energy to Clean Power”

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