The Renewable Energy Industry in CARIFORUM Countries

RENEWABLE ENERGY INDUSTRY STAKEHOLDER ASSESSMENT

SAINT LUCIA

3.12 | SAINT LUCIA

The Saint Lucia Electricity Company (LUCELEC) is jointly owned by the Government and private sector and has an installed capacity of 91 MW with about 3 MW of RE capacity. They are actively involved in RE generation for the grid but not for customers within the competitive RE industry. The 3MW RE capacity is from solar PV and is installed by the utility.

Saint Lucia is an independent territory spanning an area of 616 square Kilometres. It had a population of 182,790 people as of 2019 (UN, 2019). Its main economic sectors are tourism and the banking service.

3.12.1 | LEAD GOVERNMENT MINISTRIES

The Ministry of Infrastructure, Ports, Energy and Labour is the lead ministry with responsibility for the energy portfolio. Along with close consultation with Ministry of Finance, planning and development agencies and LUCELC, the leadGovernment ministry and LUCELEC have developed a National Energy Transition Strategy (NETS) to guide their transition to RE technologies implementation (UNDP,2017). The Government has also developed a national energy policy and national targets to focus its work. The importance of RE in the transition plan is mentioned as part of their third most important goal (UNDP, 2017). The role of distributed RE is not major and off-grid generation is considered a threat to the primary goal of a least-cost path. Losing customers from the national grid makes a case for spreading the existing cost across fewer subscribers, resulting in increased rates. However, EE is seen as a significant contributing intervention to the national goals. Much of the required framework and regulations required

to facilitate interconnection to the national grid and related feed-in tariffs for non-utility RE generators are still being developed. The energy unit has 7 persons to develop the RE industry. There is an agreed path which focuses on PV, Wind, as well as a significant reliance on geothermal to fulfill most of the future RE energy needs of Saint Lucia. Solar water heating is also encouraged as a good demand side management (DSM) option. The lead Ministry’s relationship with the other external stakeholders is depicted in the Figure 3.60 on page 88.

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The Renewable Energy Industry in CARIFORUM Countries