- HDF Energy secured greenfield land in April 2026
- Site could support 160+ megawatts of solar
- Project includes battery and hydrogen storage
- Jamaica targets 50% renewable energy by 2030
French renewable energy company HDF Energy has secured land in Jamaica for a proposed utility-scale solar, hydrogen and battery storage project, and is now inviting investors, contractors, suppliers and operators to participate in developing it, according to an advertisement the company placed in the Sunday Gleaner. HDF Caribbean says its site could support solar panels with peak capacity exceeding 160 megawatts, alongside battery and hydrogen storage capacity.
The land itself was secured months before the public call for partners: in April 2026, HDF successfully procured a significant acreage of greenfield property suitable for photovoltaic project development, according to the company’s own Jamaica Expression of Interest document, dated June 26. The project is being advanced by HDF Energy Caribbean Holdings, the Barbados-based Caribbean arm of Hydrogène de France, a French hydrogen infrastructure company listed on the Euronext Paris exchange.
If built, the project would rank among the larger renewable energy developments proposed for Jamaica to date, entering a sector that has moved in fits and starts for over a decade. Jamaica’s government issued renewable energy tenders in 2012 for 115 megawatts, then not again until 2015 for 37 megawatts, before renewing its ambition with a 2023 tender for 100 additional megawatts, aimed at growing renewables from 187 megawatts, roughly 12 percent of the grid, toward the roughly 400 megawatts needed to hit the government’s target of 50 percent renewable generation by 2030.
HDF’s proposal would enter a market where renewable capacity is currently split across wind at 101 megawatts, solar at 58 megawatts and hydro at 28 megawatts, meaning a single 160-megawatt solar plant alone could nearly triple the island’s existing solar capacity if fully realised. The project also sits inside a broader debate the government has yet to resolve: how quickly new renewable capacity can actually be added without compromising grid reliability, a tension that has shaped how cautiously Jamaica has paced its renewable tenders even as its 2030 target draws closer.
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