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(CNS): The draft updated National Energy Policy includes changes promoting more equitable access to green energy sources. But officials have said the proposed new implementation plan only considers consumers’ right to access the national grid but doesn’t mandate it. Fourteen years after the CORE programme began, only 3.5% of local power comes from renewables, and those wishing to switch to renewables are still constrained by CUC and OfReg’s piecemeal rollout of access.
An online digital town hall meeting on Wednesday, billed as an opportunity for public interaction on the draft policy, fell short of expectations when it failed to address some of the fundamental problems surrounding our energy sector. While Premier Wayne Panton said that Cayman must switch from costly, polluting fossil fuels to clean, affordable green energy, he didn’t explain how the systemic problems preventing the country from moving to 100% renewables would be tackled.
Questions submitted by CNS included why the policy doesn’t make access to renewables a legal right, why Cayman has failed to come even close to the targets in the existing policy, why a study on the value of solar has not been released, and how the policy to take public ownership of future renewable energy plants, announced by the premier in May 2022, is moving forward. None of our questions were answered during the meeting, though some were answered in part by ministry officials on Thursday.
Addressing the question of equal access to green energy and the right to that access, the ministry said the policy had been designed for all consumers, including disadvantaged communities, to participate in distributed generation programs.
“The updated National Energy Policy takes the view that both utility-scale and distributed generation are necessary for the Cayman Islands to achieve its energy targets,” officials stated in an emailed response to our questions. “In the future, the energy supplied to customers from the grid will be majority renewable, meaning customers will not have to own their own systems to be able to access the benefits of renewable energy.”
But they confirmed that the policy considers, but does not mandate, consumers’ right to produce renewable energy and energy storage and its effect on costs, stability and reliability of electricity on the grid.
Panton, who is the Minister of Sustainability and Climate Resiliency, admitted during the online meeting that Cayman needs to pick up the pace when it comes to the adoption of greener energy. “We absolutely need to make more progress on this, especially now that energy is a very specific issue that is at the forefront of people’s minds in relation to the cost of living. We also have rising temperatures in addition to rising costs.”
He said it was costing more to keep cool and keep the lights on, which gave added impetus to make more progress. The premier said that with year-round sunshine and its soft, fresh breezes, Cayman had an abundance of natural resources to convert into cheap energy.
The new policy has a greater emphasis on energy efficiency and energy storage and includes a new target of achieving 100% renewable generation by 2050. It also includes a new goal of generating 30% of the islands’ energy through renewables in just seven years.
CUC confirmed that just 3.5% of energy currently used is generated by wind or solar. Stakeholders in the solar sector believe that limited access to the grid is blocking the expansion of green energy, which is why Cayman is still more than 96% dependent on fossil fuels.
Panton stressed the new emphasis in the policy on social equity, but those interested in switching to domestic solar have a stark choice: wait and hope they can access the grid through the next CORE programme release or spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on sufficient battery storage to enable them to come off the grid.
Many people believe the piecemeal release of access to CORE and the broader Distributed Energy Resources (DER) Programme for commercial solar is why the adoption of renewables has been so slow, despite the perfect conditions to do so. As the owner of the grid, CUC controls how quickly Cayman can adopt renewables and remains critical to the success or failure of the energy policy.
Speaking during the online presentation, CUC President and CEO Richard Hew implied that things could soon change. Hew has argued that the slow release of access to CORE is to protect the stability of the grid. But on Wednesday, he said that the power supplier would be able to connect many more rooftop solar systems and other domestic or larger-scale renewables to its grid once its battery storage project is complete.
He said this would be completed in 2024, and CUC was now undertaking a study on how to expand renewable access from the current limit of 29 megawatts.
Officials at the ministry told CNS in their emailed response to our questions that this battery energy storage system “should move the Cayman Islands to approximately 25% renewable energy by 2025, putting the proposed interim target of 30% by 2030 within reach”.
During the forum, Hew said that to avoid surges or loss of power, a delicate balance between the energy coming into the grid and the energy being used must be maintained. He said that CUC’s grid, which has been described by the Office of the Auditor General as a “gold-plated network“, is very reliable but could be destabilised if the sun stopped shining while it was using renewables and the diesel generators didn’t kick in quickly enough.
He explained that CUC currently runs more diesel generators than it needs to as quick and immediate backups for when solar power suddenly stops. However, the battery plant is expected to prevent that potential instability.
“In the future with our battery project, the batteries are going to be charging and discharging to help the diesel [generators]… balance the grid,” Hew said. “But without the reliable power of the diesel engines and the batteries, the intermittent solar will cause instability,” the CUC boss added.
See the online town hall meeting on CIGTV below and read the draft energy policy here.
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