Price hike fuels CUC profits in 2015
Caribbean utilities Company (CUC)
(CNS Business): Grand Cayman’s power provider, CUC, cleared a $2 million profit last year as a result of a 3% growth in sales and a hike in the base rate last June, according to its latest financial report. In the last quarter of the year the electricity company saw a an 8% growth in sales, leading to the year-end earnings of $22.8 million.The president and CEO of CUC, Richard Hew said sales and earnings were positive but he was pleased that customers received a significant reduction in electricity costs from lower fuel prices, which he said were passed on.
“CUC continues to operate successfully in a low growth environment with a focus on delivering a safe and reliable electricity service at least cost. The Company also continues to adopt renewable energy as a sustainable technology path for the future,” he said.
During the fourth quarter of last year the Electricity Regulatory Authority approved a power purchase agreement proposed for a 5 megawatts solar plant in Bodden Town, which is scheduled for completion in October this year and will provide clean renewable solar energy to around 800 homes, significantly reducing emissions.
Meanwhile, CUC said the Consumer-Owned Renewable Energy (CORE) generation programme has also grown, with 226 participants connecting their solar panels or wind turbines to the CUC grid. The programme is nearing its current capacity and the ERA is reviewing the programme to determine if there should be a further addition to that capacity and an announcement is expected next month.
CUC said that two 18.5 MWV48/60 medium-speed diesel generating units arrived in Cayman during the last quarter of 2015 and they have been installed in a newly constructed engine room.
“The new engines are part of the Generation Expansion Project at our North Sound Road Power Plant, which is progressing according to plan. The new engine room will also house a 2.7 MW waste heat recovery steam turbine for a total output of 39.7 MW. The new plant, which will boast the most fuel efficient generation ever installed by CUC, will bring increased reliability, lower costs to our consumers and reduce the level of emissions into the environment,” CUC said in the fourth quarter report.
The project has cost around $85 million and the units are expected to start generating power in May and June, replacing old units and meeting anticipated future growth with firm capacity that intermittent renewables do not currently deliver, the firm added.
Category: Local Business, Utilities
Compared to other Caribbean Islands, CUC is futuristic. Cayman’s Government or any private company are not be able to afford such an expensive process, of harvesting clean energy ( the cost of electronics and equipment to power island wide on clean energy is out of reach ). Although Caymanians and home owners could possibly see a solution in the near future, those who can afford clean energy systems could hire a contractor or an educated caymanian to install a Renewable Energy System that could work with CUC’s Power Grid.
What we really need is alternative energy sources to put these people out of business.
It’s truly a shame with technology making leaps and bounds lately that we don’t have a more harder push by the political parties into alternative energy.
We are at the point now where there are good battery solutions for having solar power in play 24hrs a day for home.
https://www.teslamotors.com/powerwall?redirect=no
Soon he will have Solar City solutions ready. Are we ready for something like this?
We should all be grateful for the excellent service which CUC provides. Having lived and worked on other Caribbean Islands, the outages, both brown and black, are horrendous and cause many, many problems to appliances and electronic equipment, plus you always have to reset your clocks and that is no fun. Maybe that is why Caymanians are so prompt and other islanders always seem to be late, it is because their clocks always run behind due to power outages. We can thank CUC for making Grand Cayman run like a finely tuned Swiss watch. Kudos to the staff and management of CUC!!
okay we all need to buy shares in CUC