BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC – Minister of Energy and Business Senator Lisa Cummins has announced that a new Electricity Supply Act will be in place this year.
She said the new legislation would allow for standard form power purchase agreements.
“This will allow for a complete transformation in how our electricity market is regulated for the first time in decades,” Senator Cummins said on Monday.
Delivering the featured address at the Barbados Energy Storage Solutions Forum at the Hilton Barbados Resort, she told the gathering that 3.31 megawatts of solar photovoltaic systems had already been installed on government-owned buildings. She added that officials were assessing 100 more facilities to increase that capacity.
“The Cabinet has decided that all new government vehicles must be electric or hybrid. Loans to traveling officers for the purchase of cars have been increased to facilitate the purchase of electric and hybrid vehicles.
“The Government has also invested in 49 electric buses in purchasing ten more. And in our Ministry, we are already discussing the possibility of expanding that fleet even further,” she pointed out.
Senator Cummins said a commitment had been made to have a minimum of 30 percent local ownership in all renewable energy projects.
In addition, she stated, all homeowners had been granted a ‘right to renewable energy,’ which is a guaranteed ‘spot’ on the grid with little administrative red tape. She noted that tax rebates were offered to individuals and companies installing renewable energy systems.
“This has resulted in a massive surge in uptake, over 80MW in solar photovoltaic systems, one megawatt in the wind, five MW in battery storage renewable energy on the grid, and over 400 electric vehicles on the road,” Cummins disclosed.
The Minister indicated that her Ministry would be mapping, on a 20-year trajectory, what the renewable energy jobs in the future would look like based on the wind, solar, and hydrogen energy mix.
She said her Ministry would also be further updating the 2020 to 2030 National Energy Plan and the 2021 Integrated Resource and Resilience Plan next month.
The Energy Minister stressed that this was necessary because incentives, programs, and projects had been implemented over the last three years to support the renewable energy transition.
The forum formally marked the start of a partnership with the United States Agency for International Development Energy Sector Reform Project, a four-and-a-half-year project promoting self-reliance in 13 Caribbean countries by bolstering the performance of energy systems.
US Ambassador to Barbados, Linda Taglialatela, explained that the project provides technical assistance to utilities, ministries, and regulators in the Caribbean to develop policies, laws, regulations, tools, and processes to make energy systems more resilient and modern.
Taglialatela said the activity would help Caribbean countries develop more productive and diverse economies for long-term and sustainable economic growth by bolstering regional energy systems.
The Ambassador stated that the climate crisis could only be solved by transforming energy production and use.
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