Energy Minister Phillip Paulwell says the deadline for the submission of bids for the supply of 115MW of electricity generation capacity from Renewable Energy will be extended by two months to June.
He also says the one per cent bond levied on all bidders will only apply after the selection process had been completed.
In addition, Paulwell said, investors need not worry about competing with the Jamaica Public Service Company as the company has indicated that it will not be directly involved in the bidding process.
Paulwell says since being issued in November 2012, the request for proposals has attracted significant attention from local and international investors, with over 80 interested parties attending a pre-bid information session held in January.
Paulwell says the changes to the bid requirements are intended to further encourage investors as the country moves to have most of its electricity generated from renewable sources by 2030.
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The Bahamas government says it is important to develop alternate forms of energy, complaining that the high cost is also impacting foreign investment into the country.
These are issues that concern us and let me just state it for you. The cost of electricity is an extraordinary drain and has an extraordinary impact on Bahamian families. We all agree with that,” Prime Minister Perry Christie said.
“The impact on investors, for those that exist, is an extraordinary high impact in the sense that investors are telling us, he said, noting that a senior official of the Bahamas Electricity Corporation (BEC) had recently indicated that the operational costs for investors and commercial entities is as high as 20 per cent.
“Anyone looking at the economic situation in our country and saying that they want to invest, whether it is in Bimini, whether it is in Grand Bahama, they face this extraordinary, intimidating circumstance of the costs, Christie said.
“When we were in opposition, we made a determination that a priority would mean addressing electricity (prices). We had, as you have heard, any number of proposals. The FNM was obviously driven to try and do the same thing, Prime Minister Christie said as he reflected on past debates on the issue in Parliament.
Christie said the government has had proposals to convert solid waste into electricity, solar into electricity, windmills and wave energy. He said of the significant number of proposals, some have been very strong in having the private sector generate electricity.
The prime minister said a group of Bahamians visited a plant in Malaysia, where six engineers ran the 500 megawatts computer operated electricity plant that generated wind energy into electricity and that generating that kind of power is equivalent to twice the size of the current electricity yielding of the diesel generator operations housed at BEC.
“This is the point I stood up to make. Every member of this Parliament knows the history of BEC, the history of labour relations of BEC, the history of The Bahamas of being able to have government corporations that have to be subsidised, government corporations that are over dependent on labour, government corporations that when you do a cost analysis of it, that it actually really messes around with our people,” said Christie.
“My government is determined to bring an improvement to this sometime this year. We have established a technical team of Bahamians who have been joined with two external consultants who are now examining these proposals,” Prime Minister Christie added.
CMC
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Christopher Serju, Gleaner Writer
The Jamaica Agricultural Society (JAS) yesterday signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with a Canada-based company which will see both parties exploring wind-energy solutions for use by Jamaican farmers.
A team from Seaforth Energy in Nova Scotia, Canada, is now in the island on a scouting mission of JAS properties to determine their suitability for hosting the construction of a network of wind turbines to provide a supply chain of cheap, renewable energy.
The project, Clean Energy for Jamaica Farmers, is part of a long-term strategy aimed at significantly reducing production/manufacturing costs in the process enhancing the competitiveness of Jamaican agricultural goods and services on the global market.
The MOU, intended to fast-track efforts to identify appropriate sites and raise investment funding, was signed at the JAS head office, 65 Church Street, Kingston, yesterday.
Bruce Thompson, of Seaforth Energy, told
MONTEGO BAY, St James
Opposition Leader Stephenson King is calling on the St Lucia govern-ment not to join the Venezuelan oil initiative, PetroCaribe, saying it could bring the island into further debt.
“Let’s not get involved in this matter. This is not one for the government as it’s not a situation where fuel is being sold to the country at a cheaper rate. The fuel is being sold at the very rate that we are currently purchasing it from Trinidad or elsewhere,” King said.
Prime Minister Dr Kenny Anthony said plans were announced to expand the PetroCaribe pro-gramme under which several Caribbean countries have so far benefited from an estimated US$800 million in investments.
Under the initiative launched in 2005, countries receive oil from Venezuela on concessionary terms, and although St Lucia was among regional countries that signed the accord it has not benefited from the initiative.
Anthony said he has instructed his energy minister to prepare formal documentation for Cabinet to consider the matter.
– CMC
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The St. Lucia government says it will amend existing legislation governing the operations of the St. Lucia Electricity Services Limited (LUCELEC), the sole electricity company, as it moves to provide consumers with relief from high electricity rates.
“LUCLEC has to understand when there are good times they enjoy the good times but when there are bad times, it too must make the adjustment for the sake of the people of the country, Prime Minister Kenny Anthony said.
Its an issue I have raised with them. It is well known that I have said that LUCELEC can no longer enjoy … statutory comfort for specific profit levels. This is not the era for that kind of statutory arrangement,” Anthony added.
The prime minister said that his administration would be forced to amend the existing legislation, in addition to exploring alternative forms of energy if the company maintains its high rates to consumers.
In a statement following his recent visit to Venezuela where he discussed accessing the benefits of PetroCaribe, an initiative through which Caracas offers oil on concessionary terms to participating countries, Anthony said that as far as he is concerned LUCLECs electricity rates, whatever the logic maybe, are unacceptably high.
In addition to being the sole provider of electricity there, LUCELEC, by reason of the Electricity Supply Act of 1994, is guaranteed a return on its investment through an electricity surcharge.
LUCELEC shareholders include the Canadian-based Emera, First Citizens Bank Ltd., National Insurance Corporation, the Castries City Council and the St. Lucia government.
In a statement posted on its website late last year, LUCELEC said electricity rates in St. Lucia were among the lowest in the Caribbean. It quoted the latest tariff study report produced by CARILEC, the Caribbean Electric Utility Service Corporation to support its position.
It said the CARILEC report showed that for the first half of 2012, St. Lucia had the lowest electricity rates for residential customers among the 14 reporting countries.
Residential customers using 100 or 400 kilowatt hours or units in St. Lucia enjoyed better rates than their counterparts in the other OECS territories,
Steven Jackson, Business Reporter This article was originally published online on Friday, January 18, 2013. Prospective investors complained about parking millions of US dollars as a security deposit via the government regulator Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR) for bidding on 115 megawatts (MW) of clean energy projects. They also want safeguards against monopoly distributor Jamaica Public Service Company effectively underbidding them in applying for these projects – as it already controls the grid. JPS is one of 85 entities which submitted expressions of interest for the 115-megawatt renewable projects. Proposals must be submitted by April. The OUR noted the financial concerns while indicating that investors can use it as a JPS intermediary. Over 200 prospective investors – one-quarter foreigners – attended an OUR meeting at The Knutsford Court Hotel in Kingston Thursday. The turnout “pleasantly surprised” OUR representatives. It indicated the financial interest in renewable energy that forms part of the Government’s 2030 vision to reduce the island’s costly dependence on fossil fuels. But one participant, general manager Wigton Wind Farm, Earl Barrett, complained of an additional financial burden requiring developers to put up at least 20 per cent of the financing of the project, which obviates full financing by banks. Responding to the concerns, Peter Johnson, OUR manager of utility monitoring and generating procurement, said: “We want some commitment from the developers themselves. We do not want them to be just a conduit. That is the idea. We want some commitment from the developer.” “It is not unreasonable,” added Courtney Francis, senior regulator of engineering at the OUR. Leo Williams, seeking to represent bidders, said inter-connection with JPS would pose another hurdle in seeking financing for projects. JPS can charge a higher fee to rivals to connect to the grid and a lower charge to itself, said Williams and other participants. “The question of JPS and the level playing is one of which I hope you have heard. The concern expressed relates to the inter-connection costs to the (bidders) which are totally uncapped from the JPS side. So JPS could indicate all types of requirements which could drive the inter-connection costs up for the (bidder),” said Williams, who then asked in vain for the regulator to provide some indicative empirical costings. “That would be rather difficult. We cannot give a per-unit cost because it depends on the technology, configuration, depends on where you are accessing the system from, the size, and a whole raft of things. It’s hard to quantify such costs,” Francis responded. Industry players negotiate interconnection based on a minimum rate set by the OUR. Renowned lawyer Frank Phipps queried the fairness of the inter-connection arrangement and whether in previous bids, rivals won over JPS bids. “There have been previous applications where the JPS won and others in which others have won,” stated Johnson, who later added: “Please be reminded that there are already other independent power providers on the system and interconnection was a part of those arrangements. We have not seen or heard of concerns by those persons. So we are not aware of a foundation for these concerns at this time,” said Johnson. Finally, Johnson sought to allay fears: “If you have difficulty dealing with the operator (JPS), we recommend that you submit queries to us.” Two Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica representatives asked why not allocate a maximum slot for JPS to bid and offer the remainder to other players. “We do not want suboptimal solutions. So we do not want to set aside anything without knowing it will generate least cost,” said Francis. “JPS has equal opportunity to bid and to participate as any other bidder.” Bidders must submit a refundable security deposit equivalent to one per cent of the total proposed cost. They must also submit a non-refundable fee of US$8,000. The security deposit can be sent to the OUR in the form of a cheque or a letter of credit. It can be held for up to a year, reasoned participants. Additionally, the OUR told the Digicel Group has deployed an energy saver across its network in Jamaica, which is expected to cut cost by US$1.4 million ($130 million) annually. The eVolution Networks’ Smart Energy Solution (SES) is a fully-automated, intelligent software solution, which deactivates base stations during low traffic demand, while ensuring that subscribers are provided with continued high quality of service. “The solution fits seamlessly into any multi-vendor, multi-technology network, eliminating the need for Digicel to invest additional capital in base stations and allowing Digicel’s engineers to continue working as usual without having to divert any time and energy to system maintenance,” said a release issued by the telecommunications company yesterday. Digicel began testing SES in early 2012, achieving significant reductions in energy consumption. In October, Digicel fully commissioned SES network-wide, becoming the world’s first mobile operator with the “green solution”, which should result in energy and carbon savings of 2.8 gigawatt-hours and 1,500 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) respectively. “eVolution’s SES is the most mature and cost optimised energy saving platform on the market,” said Stephen Curran, network design director for Digicel Group. “It provides a valuable solution for cutting energy across our base stations and best positions us to capitalise on the shift to a fully green network. “Having successfully completed the deployment of eVolution’s solution across most of our base stations, we are now ready to demonstrate the full capabilities and unique advantages of the solution across our 30 other markets across the globe.” As soon as it became operational on the Digicel Jamaica network, SES conducted both a thorough radio coverage analysis and a deep study of the typical daily traffic patterns of each existing base station across the network. These two steps allowed SES to create individual traffic profiles for each base station across Digicel’s network
A Digicel store in New Kingston.