CUC says bills are getting cheaper as fuel rates fall
(CNS): Grand Cayman’s power provider has said that residents have seen a fall in their January bill this year by around 16% compared to the first month of 2024. CUC said the investment it has made in the transition to a renewable, resilient and affordable energy system is now showing up in bills. Residential customers with a 2024 average household consumption of 1,162 kilowatt-hours per month will see a drop or around CI$63.57 on last year for the same amount of electricity consumption.
Last month the energy charge for average residential consumption decreased by CI$1.51 when compared to December 2024. This relates to the reduction in the energy charge as previously outlined in rate change announcements in 2024 and 2023. CUC said in a press release that it had successfully delivered three critical projects to support the transition to a renewable, resilient and affordable energy system.
CUC said that during 2024 it improved the fuel efficiency to three generating units. It also delivered two 10-megawatt (MW) battery energy storage systems (BESS) to reduce the reliance on diesel and worked on boosting network resilience through undergrounding major transmission and distribution lines in the Linford Pierson Highway. This will support the safe delivery of electricity to local hospitals and police stations during weather events, the company added.
CUC said the first two projects allowed for savings to customers through a combination of reduced fuel prices and the improved fuel efficiency of the units that have undergone the life-cycle upgrade. The first life-cycle upgrade was completed at the end of March, the second at the end of June and the third in December.
A comparison of fuel rates between January 2025 and last year showed a decline of CI$0.0568 per kWh. For the average residential customer with a kWh total of 1,162, which is a savings of CI$66. Fuel rates are calculated and issued on a two-month lag, so anticipated savings to customers, specifically from these projects, were first realised in June 2024.
“As a capital-intensive industry, the utility sector requires continuous investment in innovative projects,” said CUC President and CEO Richard Hew. “CUC remains committed to delivering the least cost, highly reliable, and cleaner energy service to the people of Grand Cayman. We take this opportunity to
remind customers to remain vigilant in the monitoring of their consumption through the MyCUC portal.”
The company said it was committed to supporting the Cayman Islands’ renewable energy targets and moving forward with projects where consumer benefits outweigh the costs. But at this stage, although the National Energy Policy calls for 100% of Cayman’s energy to come from renewables in the next 20 years, less than 4% of power currently comes from green sources, making the target extremely ambitious.
CUC continues to be locked in a battle with the regulator, OfReg, over the production and control of renewable energy, both of whom have been blamed for the painfully slow move to reduce the country’s reliance on oil for power.
“The BESS project, at the Prospect and Hydesville Substation locations commissioned in October 2024, will, however, enable increased renewable penetration on the grid and reduce dependency on fossil fuel imports,” CUC stated. “Further savings are anticipated as additional projects are completed, including the life-cycle upgrades to the two remaining generating units that are a part of the life-cycle upgrade project.”
Meanwhile, the undergrounding project is a part of CUC’s resiliency programme, a portion of which was completed in 2024. This project successfully put underground a section of major transmission and distribution lines throughout the Linford Pierson Highway, enabling improved electricity provision to key infrastructure in the George Town area, such as local hospitals and police stations, thus ensuring reduced interruption to service after a major weather event has occurred.
In May 2024, CUC announced the potential need for load shedding due to electricity demand surpassing the installed generation. It said it was able to avoid the need to institute scheduled outages before the arrival of leased generation. The company has leased even smaller, costly generators to meet the island’s growing demand for power.
But this is a short-term endeavour, officials stated, as the company is committed to advancing sustainable alternatives by developing large-scale renewable energy solutions to reduce reliance on additional diesel generation.
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Imagine this (spoiler alert, you will need imagination, something CUC don’t have!)
You live in an Island with constant breeze and sunshine, an Island that rewards its energy provider by the SIZE of its oil based generators plus a generous margin, are they going to imagine a system that derives power from wind, which you have, or sun which you certainly have?
No not really, but make it worse, add to this just the hint of a possibility that it includes rewards either clear or implied to the legislators, are those legislators about to exercise their imagination?
No, thought not!
https://www.cuc-cayman.com/regulatorylist/download_pdf?file=1719502018TDL29.1_Certificate_of_Need_07062024_.pdf
Imagine being informed.
Complete nonsense. We certainly don’t always have wind or sun so even if we plastered the place in turbines and solar we’d still need exactly the same amount of diesel generation capacity on standby.
Solar energy was priced at USD$102/MWh way back in 2017. The price now has reduced to USD$35/MWh in 2025 with higher efficiency and better battery technology, forecast to lower to USD$25/MWh by 2028.
Diesel remains USD$200-300/MWh, plus the CIG guaranteed 30% profit margin.
Don’t be so happy, this is only upto election. Then back to square one.
Yep! And just in time for summer!
Of course the bills would be lower in January and it has nothing to do with fuel costs. We had back to back cold fronts which meant most people didn’t need to run their a/c day and night.
Nice try CUC trying to make it look like prices are going down.
Whilst that is true about Jan the price per kWh is on your bill each month.
Dear CNS:
The Cayman Islands is three islands and you have readers on all three islands. It would have been good for you to have included some mention and comparison in regard to rates in Cayman Brac and Little Cayman. Dart controls the power company for the Sister Islands. What’s happening there?
Bury the damn powerlines
Time to turn the AC up then
Bullchit…..
Just check the amount of disconnections done today….
The gas stations were full of people getting gas for generators tonight….everybody had a gas container for their generator…..
Once the proverbial $hit hits the fan in the Middle East oil price will skyrocket and rates will rise again. This propaganda is justification by CUC and OfReg not to bring more renewable energy to the grid. Renewable targets have been set, this should not be an excuse to push those targets out past 2037. However that said it’s not looking remotely like those targets will be met anyway, keeping shareholders happy is OfReg’s and CUC’s prime directive.
Captain Obvious here. January temperatures were lower this year so less useage by consumers led to lower bills?
Admiral Not-So-Obvious here. The article is about the rates being lower, so we pay less even if we use the same amount. If we also use less because temperature is lower, then the bill would be even lower compared to last year.
Mr. Hew,
How, exactly, do the BESS (Battery systems) reduce the reliance on diesel? If we can use all the solar electricity produced during the day, storing it doesn’t save any money or reduce diesel. I agree the storage should improve reliability when a diesel generator goes down.
When you run generators for power supply, you normally leave head room on each one so it can pick up any load if another generator fails (avoiding power quality issues or brownouts). Leaving that headroom on your generators reduces the potential efficiency of the generators, but retains the system reliability.
BESS can be used to act as that standby provision, allowing you to run your generators without as much headroom. The efficiency of the generators goes up, using less diesel for the same amount of energy. So you get to keep or improve the reliability level and you use less fuel because you change how you operate your generators overall.
1. BESS (battery systems) reduce the need for “spinning reserve” lowering costs. Spinning reserve consists of backup generators that run all the time at reduced capacity. They don’t just come on when the going gets tough – they run all the time ready to balance sudden changes in load or generation by providing so-called system services like frequency regulation, voltage control etc.
2. BESS also allow for storage of daytime solar generated electricity which can then be used at night reducing the need to the use of diesel generated power at night.
Because he said so, Mr. Marsupio. Now stop asking so many questions.
I remember a similar scenario happening in australia with tesla batteries for the electric grid.
Whilst the storage for renewables had a part, the savings were also due to the efficiency gains from stabilising supply to the grid coming from the batteries, if memory serves me right.
Maybe someone from CUC could expand on this?
Grid demand is not linear, nor perfectly predicable and curved.
In order to meet spikes in demand those diesel generators have to spin faster than actually needed to provide overhead..
Whereas batteries can it dormant, and provide that burst of energy, allowing the diesel engine to run at 5%+ overhead rather than 10%+ in a hypothetical example
Not a cuc employee or shareholder btw
Maybe it simply means that they don’t have to keep backup generators running needlessly just in case there is an issue with an operational unit. The batteries give them time to start up a generator to take over from the one with an issue.
Mine was significantly cheaper, and about time, too! Although this will only help offset everything else that has risen.
What are peoples electric bills, summer and winter? It would be interesting to get a cross section of real data.
3 bedroom townhouse CUC averages for:
2021 $235
2022 $269
2023 $344
2024 $347
Without the avg usage kwh for each year this is fairly meaningless.
Our bill for a 4 bedroom home with kids is $1k+ in Summer and ranges between $650-850 otherwise. In our 2 bedroom condo, the bill used to range between $250-$350 (years ago) and now our tenant pays between $350-$450 per month.
3 bedroom townhouse
Average bill Q1 2024: $357
Average bill Q2 2024: $405
Average bill Q3 2024: $511
Fuel cost (including duty) averages 55% of the monthly bill total
Average cost per day is around $15
don’t have comparable Q4 data due to property being empty
Tiny 1 bed studio. A/C always on. $240 p/m.
2-bedroom condo, 2,000sq ft here:
Jan 2024: 549 kWh, $201.30, ~$0.367/kWh
Feb 2024: 365 kWh, $132.68, ~$0.364/kWh
Mar 2024: 484 kWh, $159.24, ~$0.329/kWh
Apr 2024: 530 kWh, $175.35, ~$0.331/kWh
May 2024: 609 kWh, $204.17, ~$0.335/kWh
Jun 2024: 556 kWh, $193.74, ~$0.348/kWh
Jul 2024: 682 kWh, $239.48, ~$0.351/kWh
Aug 2024: 700 kWh, $243.35, ~$0.348/kWh
Sep 2024: 707 kWh, $239.40, ~$0.339/kWh
Oct 2024: 541 kWh, $188.04, ~$0.348/kWh
Nov 2024: 474 kWh, $161.54, ~$0.341/kWh
Dec 2024: 503 kWh, $162.34, ~$0.323/kWh
Jan 2025: 395 kWh, $127.14, ~$0.322/kWh