The Renewable Energy Industry in CARIFORUM Countries

COUNTRY INDICATOR ANALYSIS

4.6.2 | INSURANCE MARKETS

The insurance markets across the Region are less challenging than the financial markets since the traditional insurance standards are less onerous. Whilst referencing traditional financial lending norms significantly disadvantages the RE sector with respect to risks and terms, the insurance traditional norms parallel the RE assets to property in the residential and commercial sectors. Insurance companies therefore unreservedly provide coverage for residential and commercial RE assets as they would for a property and its contents. Furthermore, in territories where grid connection is practiced, the

requisite public liability insurance is automatically included in policies. This is quite adequate and therefore supports the RE industry well across the region. For utility-scale RE systems, implementations require two separate insurance instruments. Firstly, the plant assets are covered against damage and loss and secondly, public liability provides the coverage for accidents when interacting with the equipment. This coverage is generally available to IPPs.

4.7 | TYPES OF EXPORTS, MARKETS AND VOLUMES

The demand for RE and EE products and services are significant in all the countries in this study. This varies by country as presented in table 4.4. There is also limited and varied REC capacity and capability across the region, as shown in tables 4.8, 4.9 and 4.10. Inmost cases there is an apparent gap between supply and demand. This appearance exists due to inadequate policy and regulatory frameworks which could change, resulting in a different appearance in the RE Industry. Changes in policy take time to be reflected in the industry. Therefore, we can expect to see the gap persist for some time. To be clear, a small local RE industry in the presence of a great need that cannot be accessed, does not represent a real gap (only apparent) since the opportunities may not be available to local or regional RECs. As the accessible market grows (demand) we can expect the number and size of RECs to also grow (supply).

may be utilized to pursue export opportunities. Where RECs are limited in a market that is liberalized with a supporting legal and regulatory framework, there is opportunity for RE products and services to be imported. Both situations exist throughout the region to different degrees. Unfortunately, there exists a long traditional language barrier between the Dominican Republic which is the largest market and the rest of the region. This trade barrier has existed for many years. Given the fluidity of the market status which depends on the regulatory frameworks, it is difficult to quantify the real opportunity beyond what is presented in section 4.2 on “Market Size”. However, RECs in some territories have seized the opportunities to export their RE and EE products and services. Other territories simply have no capacity to pursue external opportunities. Table 4.17 on the following page provides some estimates provided by the RECs. Firms are very sensitive about divulging their exact sales information.

In cases where the real capacity exceeds the local demand, then there is additional capacity which

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The Renewable Energy Industry in CARIFORUM Countries