Page 39 - CARILEC CE Journal Nov 21

MS: You are absolutely right. Let me cut to the EP: You hit the nail on the head. Who pays for this?
chase, who pays for it? Consumers pay for it. There A couple of years ago I gave a presentation at a
is ultimately no other source of revenue for a utility conference. The title of the paper was “The true cost
company apart from customers. The mandate of a of renewables.” These are some of the things I was
utility company in the Caribbean is least-cost service discussing. The customer is paying for this. If you
to its customers. That is a very delicate balancing take a holistic view of renewable integration what
act between trying to implement the very laudable we’re seeing in the industry today is that you have
targets of shifting generation to renewables, while various renewable promoters offering renewables
maintaining reliability and doing it at a least-cost as a least-cost solution. While that can be true, if
basis. The question is very valid. It’s difficult to you look at it as a stand-alone system, installation
plan and install assets that may require 20 years to costs on a dollar-per-kilowatt basis are much lower
amortize the cost of those assets, knowing that in now, even lower than thermal today. However, to
10 years technology may have completely changed hit the nail on the head here, once you take that
the playing field. I think that’s where everyone installation and put it in your system, then from our
needs to be on board. Regulators, governments, view, the right way to assess the impact is to look
consumer stakeholders, and utilities all need to be at it (renewables) on a system-wide basis instead of
on board and be talking about this and understand a stand-alone basis. By that I mean, how does the
what goes into providing reliable electricity service injection of renewables affect the bottom line to the
at the least cost. end-user. This is often overlooked.

FP: The principle goes both ways. If you’re thinking Planners these days are not looking at the fact that
about how you amortize a large investment in injecting renewables in the system now changes
thermal today that may not be necessary in 20 the upgrading profile of the existing plants. To the
years, you also have to think about how you justify negative, now that you have renewables in the
spending X amount of upfront now knowing that it system, an intermittent form of generation, then the
won’t cover your energy needs for the next five years. existing thermal is forced to operate at sub-optimal
You’re going to need thermal. How you spend the points. They are forced to operate at points in their
capital when customers ultimately pay for it is key. operating profile where they are least efficient.

39