Draft energy policy review to go to public
(CNS): More than six years after the National Energy Policy was first published, Cabinet has approved the publication of a draft updated policy and the rollout of a 30-day public consultation period. The policy, which is expected to be posted online in the coming days, covers Cayman’s energy needs and how they will be achieved from now until 2050.
The current policy covers the period between 2017 and 2037 and calls for it to be reviewed to monitor the progress and reset targets within five years of its publication. Its key target was that at least 70% of Cayman’s electricity be generated through renewables, such as solar or wind, by 2037.
But that target remains elusive, as less than 8% of the Cayman Islands’ power is generated through green energy, with the rest produced by burning diesel. The needle on that percentage has barely moved since the policy was introduced.
Kurt Tibbetts, who was the planning minister and responsible for the policy at the time, had been highly optimistic when the policy was adopted. He said the target of 70% of our energy coming from renewables by 2037 was not only realistic, it could even be exceeded.
But in reality, the piecemeal rollout of residents’ access to CUC’s renewable energy programmes on Grand Cayman as well as the slow pace at which it is adapting its generation more broadly means that unless there is a sudden surge in green sources of power, the country will fall for short of that target.
Cayman’s demand for power has increased significantly since the policy was first introduced. CUC’s customer base has grown by around 18% over the last five years, from around 28,000 in 2017 to 33,214 as of March this year, as the population has surged and new businesses have opened.
The work on the review began in January and involved stakeholders and the general public, including an online survey. But some eight months before the review started, Premier Wayne Panton, whose Ministry of Sustainability has responsibility for the Energy Policy Unit, revealed a new approach towards green power.
He said that the Cayman Islands Government would seek to take control of the country’s future green energy resources through majority ownership of any new solar or other renewable energy facilities. In April 2022, the premier said that the government and the public should hold the majority shares in any new infrastructure, allowing Cayman to reap and retain the benefits of renewable projects and control of future energy supplies.
The motivation was to give control of future energy supply to the people and increase the pace towards renewables. “We have to make up for lost time,” Panton had said. “Faster adoption of renewable energy moves us closer to energy security and energy independence. The Cayman Islands is not immune from the global price shocks, the increasing energy prices and increasing costs of other consumer items will drive up the cost of living. Now that the government has stated its policy intent, the real work begins. We will commence stakeholder engagement to design the implementation plan.”
There is now an expectation that when it is published, the new policy will outline that intent.
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Category: Energy, Policy, Politics, Science & Nature
This article warns of more looming disaster from the Panton-PACTless Clown Car (PPCC).
#1. “The head PPCC driver said that the Cayman Islands Government would seek to take control of the country’s future green energy resources through majority ownership of any new solar or other renewable energy facilities.”
If the government’s ability to keep the weather radar online is any foreshadowing, people better stock up on candles, flashlighs, batters and wood to cook with.
#2. “The head of the PPCC said that the government and the public should hold the majority shares in any new infrastructure, allowing Cayman to reap and retain the benefits of renewable projects and control of future energy supplies.”
If Government’s ability to regulate, control, and provide affordable health care and cost-effective and adequate health insurance is any indicator; if the control of crime is any indicator; if the waiting list for seats in government schools is any indicator: If the PPCC or any government gets involved in the energy industry here, all the people will reap is woefully inadequate and cost-ineffective service.
Is there any vital service that government (and especially the PPCC) has not mucked up royally?
How about starting with the Sister Islands? Dart owns Cayman Brac Power and Light (now “Island Energy”). Would be a good idea to start on a smaller scale as a demonstration project. Show what can be done. Get some good PR for the country.
Show what can be done? Good PR you say? DART doesn’t care about planning approval follow-throughs, PR, or the environment. Their family empire was built on products breaking down into dioxins, furans, and PCBs all over the world. 50 years and Billions of forever single-use McDonalds hamburger clamshells, for starters. Despite this history of ecological disaster, and without any knowledge, they were handed the keys to run OUR landfill. An unlined dump that burns. They want to cap and forget, not because that’s how to do it right, but because it’s the cheapest option and they can save a buck. They still won’t order a replacement of the municipal glass crusher, and not even a used one <$500k. In fact, with self-satisfaction they taunt those that really do purport to care. Consider that this week Compass Media, a fully-owned DART entity, is running banner ads for "beach clean up" of the former "Safe Haven" (actually Northsound frontage registered as Dragon Bay for more more than a decade), a fully-owned, and neglected DART portfolio property. Without irony, their staff will smugly donate flats of single use plastic water bottles so Plastic Free Cayman volunteers can cool themselves off with plastics after they finish clearing DART's rubbish for them. Even with their own parked tractors and idle workers across the road at their golf course. We need to rethink the PR expectations for this preferred landowner. Do we even see them? If so, why are they preferred?
@5:01:
Yes!
That plus the fact that power costs on Cayman Brac are higher than in Grand Cayman.
Great idea!
We need to start fracking now if we are going to survive.
Frackin A!
The Panton’s clown car at the helm were are already fracked.
Solar yes, but not exclusively photovoltaic PV panels producing DC power fed through inverters. Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) is more efficient per acre, and produces AC power that blends easily with the power grid. Greentech is evolving and thought leaders need to keep up. We also have limitless MW’s of deep sea thermal reactors in the form of black smokers less than 20 miles south. We shouldn’t ignore this free power. All of Cayman should benefit, not just select political donors.
https://www.nuscalepower.com/en/products/voygr-smr-plants
https://www.nuscalepower.com/en/projects
Carbon Free Power Project
Idaho
Project Highlights
First VOYGR™ SMR power plant in the U.S. will be fully operational by 2030
More than $1 billion awarded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to help fund development
Plant will employ dry cooling to cut water use by more than 90 percent
Milestones
2022 – Geotechnical investigations are completed, a groundwater monitoring network is established, and an on-site meteorological monitoring station is commissioned
2020 – Core boring work, meteorological tower installation, and surface seismic testing are completed
2019 – A plant site is selected and field work begins
2016 – DOE issues an early site permit (ESP) to UAMPS for the CFPP within the INL
2015 – UAMPS launches the Carbon Free Power Project
France and other first world countries have been using modular nuclear for decades.
But, the stranglehold CUC has over tbe island seems unbreakable.
CUC’s half-hearted solar energy policy is like this for a reason. and if the rumours are true, adding LPG means tank farms of highly explosive gas.
I think we have enough giant tanks of petro and LPG.
Our laws prohibit nuclear power, so you’re going to have to point blame at our legislators on this one.
there is no-one in cig or civil service with expertise or qualifications to tackle this issue
civil service is filled with poorly educated people with zero ability to tackle these issues.
if we can’t be honest and face these facts we will never be closer to a solution.
Yet, there are experts and even people that do this for a living that aren’t polled. CIG would rather canvas via an invite only in-person community hall with some old folks looking for deep fried bacon shrimp skewers. These are not think tanks. Same for complex negotiations. It seems the fewer career experts involved the better.
Agreed.There is plenty of expertise. We just don’t get a seat at the table.
Too clever and would bruise egos.
Current CUC monopoly contract includes guaranteed profit and dividends. You couldn’t make this up.
Ask your MP how many CUC he/she owns? Conflict?
I am currently traveling abroad and am constantly asked why the Cayman Islands don’t have huge solar energy farms when we have the perfect conditions to do so.
Apart from the original capital cost, can someone with expertise in this subject please explain to me why we don’t use solar farms? Does it have to do with storage of the electricity?
I’m asking this seriously because I’m assuming that there may be a valid reason why solar is not our main form of energy.
Are you suggesting we cut down mangroves for them? Also have you seen how expensive land is?
Ever heard of solar panels being placed on a roof?
you can put a solar farm on a roof?
Solar panels on a roof, yes of course. They even put them on sailboat “roofs”.
When the new eastern road is built, add roofs over sections and install solar on them. This works in other countries.
In the meantime, build roofs over existing roads and add solar on them.
No more land would be consumed.
Car parks. Then roofs of all government buildings, including schools. Then other roofs. Then over roads (if still needed).
Still not enough (directed toward the “if still needed” note).
Also consider many roofs are not structurally sound for the additional loading. Recall Ivan damages. Ground mounted systems have a much better chance of surviving larger hurricanes, on average.
If a roof survived Ivan, it can survive the loading of some solar panels…
Or floating on the ponds left in disused quarries.
Passive solar farms take up too much land area and are inefficient and too expensive per Kwh by today’s standards. For the effort of cleaning those panels, and occupying that land, we should be using sun-tracking mirrors and solar concentrators to maximum footprint and output. Cayman keeps looking back 30 years instead of adopting latest CSP/CVP technology and solid state batteries. We could get to 100% renewable, with grid levelling and backup reserve very quickly by considering sensible de-biased choices.
You need HUGE solar farms to produce the same amount of electricity. Land is expensive, and we have limited land. Solar panels are expensive. Also, we have hurricanes. So if we had solar electricity exclusively, our electricity costs would sky rocket! And after we would be unable to recover as quickly following disasters.
i agree with you 100%
See you at breaktime, my CUC brethren!
Or we could stop kicking the can down the road and build roofs over existing roads in spots and install solar on them.
There’s a solar farm in BT. We need solar on rooftops and solar car park shade/ charging stations before we roll out on land. Been saying this for years. Nobody listens,too busy protecting their CUC dividends.
A) Upfront cost, yes. (And agreeing a guaranteed cost-over-time where both distributor (CUC) & supplier make a profit.) While OfReg & CUC focuses on ‘cheapest’ without taking into account socioeconomic costs of non-renewable energy sources.
B) Storage – the idea that it has to be ‘firm’ or ‘always on’ power. This is where you either need giant battery banks, or have CUC’s generators on standby ready to ramp up as the sun goes down (to put it overly simply). Everyone around the world is struggling with storage solutions/costs. See above re cheapest solution. (And as someone will likely mention in reply to this, the rare earth elements used in these high powered batteries, etc. But mining pollution still a bit better than fossil fuel pollution.)
C) Monopolisation – A desire for solar farms and single suppliers of large amounts of electricity, at a concentrated profit, rather than distributed solar (and distributed battery supply), i.e., rooftop solar, with the distribution of any profits (realistically cost savings) to the community members participating. (Even if they are big participants, e.g., Dart puts solar panels on every building and car park he owns.) – Distributed solar is less efficient than a solar farm (and a battery farm) but the argument in its favour is, again, social more than economical. (And environmental. On to that next.)
D) Environmental – Please do not cut down forests / wetlands / whatever to build solar farms. That ‘wastes’ land that could be better used for something environmental (trees) when we have lots of car parks and roofs that could support distributed solar without the environmental cost. (Not that environmental costs ever stopped a power plant or solar farm, but they are and should be an issue for OfReg to take into account, like social benefits.) Or floating solar farms in the old disused quarry lakes.
For bonus points ask why OfReg and Agriculture aren’t promoting mixing solar panels and crops or goats on farms, as is being experimented with successfully in other places. The sun is hot in Cayman. Many crops, and livestock, like a bit of shade relative to full stength Cayman sun. Which the solar panels provide. Win-Win socially and economically. But see point A above, its all about the cash.
In other countries – for those people who dont’ have the money themselves to put in their own panels to sell back to the power distribution company through a CORE-type programme – a power production company will rent the land and install the solar panels. So the farmer, or parking lot owner, focus on doing what they do and the power company focuses on making power from solar panels, while the distribution company focuses on moving electricity from A to B and charging both A & B for doing so while also paying A with some of what they got from B. Money circulates around the economy, including the power generation and distribution companies (though I suggest we retain a single distributor locally for economies of scale) and everyone wins. Yes, including the consumer (B) who doesn’t have solar panels when their A/C doesn’t have to run as hard as it will if we stick with fossil fuels.
Fully expect to see the next couple of power generation bids go to solar farms (probably clear-cutting bushland to do so) as OfReg continues to ignore the socieconomic benefits of distributed (rooftop & agriculture) solar. So the question isn’t why not solar farms but why not distributed solar. – OfReg/CIG, care to comment?
Solar on rooftops and car parks are significantly more expensive. There is also currently more than twice as much rooftop solar than solar farms. So not so much why not rooftop solar as posited and more so why not more progress?
That you referenced goats is amusing. Goats are awful for solar farms – they jump on panels and chew through cabling. Sheep, maybe, but definitely not goats if you want to actually produce electricity.
Regarding “B) Storage – the idea that it has to be ‘firm’ or ‘always on’ power. This is where you either need giant battery banks, or have CUC’s generators on standby ready to ramp up as the sun goes down (to put it overly simply). Everyone around the world is struggling with storage solutions/costs.” Batteries are NOT the only solution. There are companies selling underwater energy storage using pressurized air. There’s plenty of “underwater” real estate here, it’s free, and not subject to hurricane force winds. It’s called CAES. Hydrostor is one company, there are more.
There are off grid homes on this island … but would CUC listen ? Would CIG even consider to copy paste what has been already achieved by individuals just using their own roof has sole source of power ? No … They prefer to pay “experts” and consultants that propose plans that end up garnering dust in libraries and occupy hard drive space at the end of the day. When I speak off grid I mean on site production and storage of energy and all of that using off the shelf components that are readily available not out of reach technologies, but something proven and tested.
We just like to reward incompetence and LOVE to keep on complaining about the lack of solutions while not taking any decisions that imply a modicum of bravery and rely on magical thinking at every single level of government .
For those doubting electric power from the neighbouring fusion station there are Megapacks or adapted to home use the Powerwalls but of course playing garrison politics pays more than bringing durable solutions to the absence of renewable energy and then complaining constantly about Cost of Living on island BECAUSE we are using the most expensive form of energy aka fossil fuels to refrigerate every single square foot of commercial space.
Our local government would have the courage to sign on a deal that would imply an investment ranging within 200MUSD of Megapacks granting 800Mw/h of storage granting an autonomy from solar of continuous absence of sunlight crisis. Things would be quite different.
The main reason Solar isn’t the main form of energy on islands boils down to CUC which is very effective at spreading Fear Uncertainty and Doubt regarding the viability of solar power on Island at every level of .gov , paying lip service to renewable energy through the DER and CORE agreement whose latest instalments are an insult to anyone with the necessary arithmetic skills to use an iPhone’s calculator.
Why would you install solar panels on your roof to get a measly credit of 16 Cents per KW/h ? Unless you produce twice as much as you consume that equation just doesn’t work in the consumer’s favour and the limitation per the CORE program of a a maximum of 10KW per household simple precludes that .
Solar farms are a possibility but it implies clearing land for a specific usage that rubs a lot of people wrong on island for conservation reasons. The best solution would be allowing every household to install solar power and generalising the access to a better version of the CORE program where the would be subscriber would be compensated at least 28 Cents per KW/h contributed to power the grid.
There is in the works a policy that would allow for each household to allow for solar and a newer definition of the CORE agreement allowing for BSS (Battery Energy systems storage) but this takes OfReg to take a stance as to the generalisation of renewable energy.
So government thought paying more than 20 cents on fuel costs was detrimental and unaffordable, thus instituting their relief programme last year but you think we should buy solar energy at 28 cents? Walk me through how that makes sense.
CUC monopoly. We are at the mercy of the CUC monopoly contract. Just look back at the proposals and rejections over the years. Profit and dividends win over environment every time.
Profits, bobo
There is only one reason – CUC. You can believe their spin if you like but they are one of the biggest problems with Cayman and have been since they started.
Takes six years, but the public get 30 days?
CUC slow rolling for profits. Pure and simple.
Virture signalling. Report soon to join the others on a dusty shelf in the glass house
Highly optimistic they are that this country won’t be underwater by 2050.
Even the expected 12 inches by 2050 doesn’t quite put Cayman underwater. The full yard expected by 2100 is when that problem really manifests. Decades before then we have fresh water crisis (happening now), global fisheries collapse, crop failures and food crisis, mass human migration, materials refining and export bans (happening now), at least one global resource war, and then also by 2100 air quality filtration for those that can afford it, searing daytime heat, acid rain warnings, and exposure suits. All so that we could continue to eat hamburgers in DART-made clamshells.
Tin foil hat much?
Greentech has been around for decades, and includes a lot more than just solar and wind, but successive governments, and their donor class, aren’t willing to take action to reformat and constrain the power monopoly run by Joey Hew’s brother. CUC pays a fat dividend.
why not go with mini nuclear power. Completely harmless to the environment. And they are the size of two hot tubs.
each mini nuke will give 20K homes 10c a kilowatt hour power for 3 years. And after 3 years the mini nuke is simply replaced with a new one. have 4 running at any one time. There. Cayman energy solved.
if it’s good enough for remote mines. And even companies like westing house (who makes toasters and fridges) makes them.
why is it not good enough for cayman……
Right, I forgot. Most of the persons that could make that decision owns shares in CUC…….
To convince us why don’t you post links showing where they have been successfully installed? There must be thousands of isolated towns with populations similar to ours throughout the world.
They are all around us in ships and submarines and we have no shortage of water for cooling.
France, bobo
link?
France has one of the largest nuclear power programs in the world. Nuclear power plants in France generated 361 billion kilowatthours of electricity in 2021, accounting for 68% of the country’s annual electricity generation, the highest nuclear generation share in the world.
France has 56 operable nuclear reactors with a total capacity of 61 gigawatts (GW), second only to the 95 GW nuclear fleet in the United States. Nuclear plants accounted for 19% of U.S. electricity generation in 2021.
Although France’s first commercial nuclear reactor came online in the 1960s, the country began the large-scale plan to build its nuclear power fleet in the mid-1970s, following the 1973 oil crisis. At the time of the oil crisis, oil-burning power plants generated a significant share of France’s electricity.
France has few fossil fuel resources—coal, oil, or natural gas—of its own. To increase domestic energy supply and reduce reliance on imports, which could result in price shocks like during the oil crisis, it turned to nuclear power. Between 1975 and 1990, 52 new nuclear reactors were built and connected to France’s power grid.
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=55259#:~:text=France%20has%2056%20operable%20nuclear,U.S.%20electricity%20generation%20in%202021.
Vive la France!
The smallest nuclear plant in France generates more than 30 times CUC’s peak load. They do not scale down that well.
Because Cayman loves hysterics and phobias
The radiation could leak after another Hurricane Ivan and create Godzilla!
what do we do with the waste?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2021/05/31/finland-breaks-ground-on-its-deep-geologic-nuclear-waste-repository/
We don’t.
They are modular.
the manufacturer sumply replaces the whole module. the old module is taken away for upgrades and refueling.
we could have BoBo from the bay as senior operator
Plenty of Homer Simpsons about!
Really, what’s the point OfReg? This is an exercise in futility. May as well ask CUC how they plan to meet the pipe dream 2037 70% renewables target since they’ll still hold the monopoly on the grid. I predict technologies like plasma fusion and antigravity drive vehicles will come before Cayman realises anything close to even 50% electricity from renewables.
Free the grid from CUC!
Vested interests are pushing for LNG to replace diesel as source of fuel. Hence the sudden urgency to adopt the National Energy Policy (NEP) since NEP mentions LNG. Once NEP is adopted OfReg can then permit LNG terminals etc…
No NEP = no cover for OfReg.
NEP adoption is all about a few getting rich.
Ringleaders are VP Customer Service and father et al
NEP is already in existence. This is an update process. 🙄