The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

A Chamber of Commerce director yesterday applauded efforts to bring regulation of Bahamas Power & Light’s (BPL) energy tariffs under independent oversight for the first time.

Debbie Deal, head of the Chamber’s energy and environment division, told Tribune Business she “likes the idea” of the Utilities Regulation and Competition Authority (URCA) taking over responsibility for regulating the state-owned energy monopoly’s pricing.

She spoke out after URCA launched a public consultation on the framework it plans to use to assess and approve energy tariff (price) applications by BPL and other electricity suppliers moving forward.

The regulator said it is seeking to find the right balance between the interests of the consumers and BPL, insisting that the former should not pay more than necessary to receive electricity service of a given standard.

URCA is proposing that BPL better segment its customers into categories based on “common/shared characteristics”, which will make it easier to levy a consistent charge. These categories would be based on features such as consumer type, meaning if they are residential, commercial or industrial users, and their level of electricity consumption.

And the regulator is proposing that BPL offer “special non-fuel charges” to three consumer groups. The first are so-called “lifeline rates” for the most challenged and economically vulnerable consumers, where all residential users get a reduced charge for the first 200 kilowatt hours of electricity consumed. However, the base tariff is only discounted for these vulnerable consumers.

Then there are “standby rates” that are “designed for those companies who own and operate generating equipment capable of meeting their own power requirement”, but which sometimes need to take utility power when demand outstrips their own supply.

Finally, URCA is proposing “time-of-use rates” to “reflect the fact that the utility’s cost to provide electricity to consumers varies according to the time of the day the electricity is produced”.

Ms Deal backed the notion that consumers should pay the equivalent of what they are receiving in terms of service quality. “So if we’re getting intermittent power outages, if there’s a hurricane, and you’re not getting any power, or you’re only getting little bits, that kind of stuff, then your rate would be different,” she said.

“For persons that don’t have as much money and are challenged by many things, whether they’re physically challenged or financially challenged, their rate under 200 kilowatts would be less than other people.

“And if you are going to provide your own power through solar, and you only want to tie into BPL for a certain period of time - if you only want to tie into BPL at night-time - you would pay a different rate. I agree with that.”

Ms Deal added: “People have been complaining about having to pay the same price for electricity when they are not getting a good standard of quality. I’m really glad URCA is addressing this because we can’t be expecting foreigners to come in and be second home owners, and we can’t expect boutique hotels to come in, and not give a quality standard of power service.

“Our guests to this country expect what they have in their own country, so I’m really grateful for URCA doing this. Whatever energy company is in power, they must actually produce the top quality standards otherwise, with this new regulation, the amount that they may be able to charge maybe reduced because of that.

“So we really need to scale our energy production, and our energy company has to be able to accommodate the people that we would like to attract come into this country.”