Energy enterprise between 1982 and 1994, after which it was privatised— although the government maintains a direct 10 % share and the NIS( National
Energy enterprise between 1982 and 1994, after which it was privatised— although the government maintains a direct 10 % share and the NIS( National
Insurance Scheme), owns 12.5 %, WRB owns 50 % and the rest is shared among private investors. Even though it is a private company, it’ s worth mentioning that Grenlec helps to nurture its community by contributing over EC $ 1 million annually to support local development projects.
Grenlec’ s primary objective is to profitably provide reliable and affordable electricity to the Grenadian state. Obviously, as the Grenadian nation comprises three populated yet small Caribbean islands, this objective has many extra challenges that would not apply to, for instance, a large island or landlocked state. However, the reliability of the electricity supply is very good, although since 2010 there has been a slight increase in power cuts alongside a slight decrease in demand.
The government often grumbles in the media about the negative economic impact of high-priced electricity, yet it did not re-buy Grenlec when it had the chance in 2013 and it still imposes its standard 100 % import duty on renewableenergy generators.
Also, an increasing number of people complain about the price of the electricity and the restrictions that Grenlec’ s monopoly of electricity generation brings. It would be against the law, for example, to sell electricity to your neighbours, even when that power is generated by solar panels or wind turbines or other renewableenergy sources. Since
2007, however, it is possible to install non-fossilburning electricity generators, such as solar panels and wind turbines, and use the power for your own needs and then sell any surplus electricity to Grenlec. In 2011 / 2012 this‘ interconnection policy’ covered 50 customers who produced 30 kilo watts( KW), which was 1 % of the peak electricity demand faced by Grenlec.
The interconnection policy was a pilot project and Grenlec ran it as a simple net-meter programme: each customer had just one meter that ran backwards when electricity was added to the national grid, and which was reset annually to avoid negative accumulation. Obviously, this is not a viable long-term option for a private company with profit-seeking shareholders. Consequently, the trial policy has been replaced by a system that uses two meters: one meter is the familiar form that records the standardpriced electricity, which at the time of printing was EC $ 1.08 per unit, drawn from the grid; the second meter registers how much electricity is supplied to the
“
Grenlec has been trying to secure land for wind turbines since 2006, and has been taking wind measurements from various locations since then.- Mr Clive Hosten grid, for which Grenlec offers a choice of two purchase options. Option A is a mean average of the historical cost of the fuel it would have used to generate that amount of electricity, which is about EC $ 0.45 per unit; Option B is a variable rate based on the previous year’ s value of the fuel not used, and so will have plummeted with oil’ s recent low price— for 2015 this rate will be less than 45 cents. Grenlec is currently receiving 100KW from this scheme and will allow it to reach 500KW.
“
Even though Grenlec has solar panels producing 150KW on its offices in Petit Martinique, and has installed enough on its offices in Grenada to cover about 85 % of its own electricity needs, Mr Hosten told us that for several reasons domestic-based solarpower generation is not ideal for Grenada.
The first is that solar power can only be generated for a maximum of ten hours a day; the other 14 hours would need to come from alternative generators. Even a few heavy clouds could greatly reduce the output from solar panels on the roofs of domestic homes, which would create a temporary drop in power supply that Grenlec would need a large battery source to replace— and that would be expensive.
This expense leads to the second problem, which is that although those who could afford solar panels would experience a drop in electricity charges, the extra expense of the batteries to balance load and demand would mean that the cost of power from the national grid would have to rise, which would mean that the poorest would be paying extra to secure the electricity supply for those who can afford to install solar panels. Hosten believes that wind turbines are much more efficient and, at their best, can produce power 24 hours a day.
Because Grenada’ s peak demand is about 50MW he points out that a combination of solar power www. businessgrenada. com
67 67