Support for Climate Change Adaptation and Sustainable Energy Programming

The electric utilities in the Caribbean region depend heavily on imported fossil fuels, causing high electricity prices for end users and leaving local economies vulnerably exposed to international oil price fluctuations. This region is mainly composed of small island developing states (SIDS), which are vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change. The Caribbean Electric Utility Services Corporation (CARILEC), with financing from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), commissioned Econoler to support five electric utilities (in Barbados, Belize, Dominica, and Saint Kitts and Nevis) in developing a supply and demand-side management climate-change adaptation strategy.

Econoler developed an adapted work plan that involved the following activities: developing strategies for supply-side and demand-side energy management for each electric utility. Econoler joined forces with CARIBSAVE, which is focused on the climate-change mitigation and adaptation component:

• For the climate change adaptation plan: Econoler, with the support of JF Clarke Consulting, assessed the climate change impacts observed in the electricity sector, determined the adaptation measures to improve the resilience of utility operations, identified the mechanisms to facilitate the implementation of the selected adaptation measures, and assessed the co-benefits of adopting EE/RE measures in utility operations.
• For the supply-side component, Econoler’s experts first performed detailed energy assessments at selected member utility companies. Based on the collected data, two main kinds of outputs were provided: (1) a supply-side management plan and (2) a strategy for deploying smart-grid technologies.
• For the demand-side component, data collection was performed on site at the targeted main consumers, namely the water treatment plant, the public lighting system, the hotel industry sector and the public building sector. The project team developed a strategy for demand-side management that included the following outputs: (1) a mechanism for establishing energy service companies (ESCOs) among CARILEC member utilities; (2) a model energy performance agreement (EPA), including a scheme for repayment on the electricity bill; (3) an investigation of regulatory and financing strategies for recovering investments in energy-efficiency programs; and (4) an ESCO business model tailored to the Caribbean utilities.

  A series of four webinars were conducted to disseminate information and transfer knowledge to the Caribbean utilities and a final workshop was held at the 2017 CARILEC CEO annual meeting to disseminate the information produced as part of this assignment.   This project was an important step for securing further commitments from the selected electric utilities, which are essential actors in implementing tangible sustainable energy projects in the Caribbean.