(CMR) Caribbean Utilities Company, Ltd. (“CUC”) informed the public earlier this week that their Consumer Owned Renewable Energy (“CORE”) program had reached its capacity and would, therefore, be coming to an end.
The CORE program is one of two available renewable energy options in the Cayman Islands. It allows consumers to access a fixed and subsidized solar option. However, it has now run out of capacity and consumers will have to consider the second available program, Distributed Energy Resource (“DER”), which was introduced in January 2018.
The CORE program which was revised and approved by the regulator in 2012 has been very popular with both residential and commercial customers. The program has allowed customers to connect small scale solar systems or wind turbines to CUC’S distribution systems and to reduce their monthly energy bills by generating their own electricity while remaining connected to the CUC grid.
On December 31, 2019, there were 432 customers connected with 5,611.2 kilowatts of renewable capacity. The remaining capacity has been allocated to approved applications for installations in progress.
James Whittaker, from GreenTech Solar, explains what has transpired and what interim option remains available for OfReg to consider so that consumers can continue to take advantage of the CORE program.
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