The Cayman Renewable Energy Association has told The Caymanian Journal (TCJ) that liquefied natural gas "cannot touch a single bill" inside the 18 to 20 months Premier André Ebanks MP has set for relief from diesel, and that committing to a gas import terminal would tie consumers to fossil fuels "for decades more" when the islands are at 3% renewable energy after more than 15 years of pursuing clean power.

The response, from the association's president James Whittaker, is the first from the clean energy sector since the Premier told the Chamber of Commerce on 9 October that the government had asked the Utility Regulation and Competition Office (URCO) to re-examine the route off diesel and whether LNG should serve as a transitional fuel "if it's going to be too slow and you can't do 100% of the solar". TCJ reported on 19 October that Finance Minister Rolston Anglin MP made the request and that Caribbean Utilities Company (CUC) has a preferred bidder for LNG supply. Mr Whittaker is also founder and chief executive of GreenTech Energy, a solar installer and a member of the association, which he described as a non-profit advocacy body of just over 40 members, most of them outside the solar industry.

"The timing doesn't work on the utility's own numbers"

"CREA maintains its position that LNG is not the appropriate energy solution for the Cayman Islands today, for a host of reasons, none more important than this: it would require us to spend tens if not hundreds of millions on new fossil fuel infrastructure, which means the country and its consumers are re-committed to fossil fuels for decades more," Mr Whittaker said. "All of our money today should be spent on renewable energy and energy efficiency." Only at "approximately 60 to 80% renewable penetration levels" should new baseload spending be considered, he said, "and by that point the baseload source is expected to be green fuels such as hydrogen, not LNG".

He set the Premier's window against CUC's published timetable. In its written response to TCJ on 13 October, the company said that after award it expects an 18-month period to validate its LNG assumptions and that gas could be in use "as soon as 2029". "The Premier asked what can be done in 18 to 20 months," Mr Whittaker said. "LNG cannot touch a single bill inside the window the Premier set. Renewables can." Asked whether that window was realistic for a measurable cut in the fuel component of bills, he said: "Yes, if the decisions are taken now and in favor of the mass adoption of renewables. If resources are focused on that and the political will is there, solar is faster, cleaner, cheaper and more stable than any other option available in that window."

The association was involved in LNG discussions "years ago" through the National Energy Policy committee, he said, but "we have not been consulted on LNG since, and we have not been consulted on the analysis the Premier described. It was a bad idea back then and it remains a bad idea today. LNG is even more volatile than diesel."

The arithmetic of 30% by 2030

The National Energy Policy 2024-2045, adopted by Cabinet on 16 April 2024, sets renewable generation targets of 30% by 2030, 70% by 2037 and 100% by 2045. CUC's 2025 annual report, as TCJ reported on 19 October, puts total generation at 779.6 million kilowatt-hours with 21.4 million kilowatt-hours supplied from renewables, just under 3%. Its 2026 sustainability report, published on 25 September, states that "100% of CUC's owned generation comes from diesel" and records 773,586 megawatt-hours generated in 2025 from 164.70 megawatts of diesel capacity, alongside 21,447 megawatt-hours of solar electricity bought from other producers for resale, down from 22,146 megawatt-hours in 2024. Meeting 30% of last year's output would require roughly 234 million kilowatt-hours a year from renewable sources, about eleven times the 2025 figure. Mr Whittaker put installed solar across the islands at "just over 20 MW".

The only utility-scale renewable project in the regulatory process is a 22.5 megawatt dispatchable photovoltaic plant with battery storage on Grand Cayman. URCO issued its final request for proposals on 3 July 2025. CUC submitted a bid on 2 October 2025 and was told on 29 April 2026 that its submission had been "shortlisted as a top-ranked bidder", according to its sustainability report. No other bidder has been named publicly, no award has been announced, and CUC told TCJ on 13 October that it could not give an operational date because the project remains in the regulatory process. The Bodden Town Solar 1 farm, the only operating solar farm, sells at least 8.8 gigawatt-hours a year to CUC under a 25-year agreement, about 1% of last year's generation.

The government's own sequencing puts solar last. Its three-phase energy relief and resilience plan, announced on 29 April, began with the fuel charge cap and the duty waiver, moves in 2027 to expanded home energy efficiency retrofits, and only then to scaling up solar in line with the energy policy. The Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, announcing the duty waiver on 29 May, described the later phases as the return of the CHEER efficiency programme and "longer-term acceleration of utility-scale renewable projects", without naming any project beyond the one in URCO's tender. URCO's implementation and monitoring plan for the policy, as TCJ reported on 19 October, includes an action to assess whether natural gas is viable as a transitional option, recorded as "Initial independent study has been completed"; on 9 March the regulator approved CUC's revised certificate of need, which specifies no fuel or technology. The policy's first two-year review is due this year. The government's energy page puts emissions, last estimated for 2022, at 18.3 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per person, against an aspiration of 4.8 tonnes by 2030.

The business model

Asked for the single largest obstacle to faster utility-scale solar, Mr Whittaker named the way the utility is paid. "The regulated utility model, here and in many other islands, earns its return on assets the utility owns. It earns nothing on solar a customer owns or that a third party produces, so the model works against distributed solar by design, and the path of least resistance for the utility is to try to move from a fossil fuel monopoly to a renewable energy monopoly," he said. "If the utility is not willing to change that legacy model, government and the regulator must be willing to act and implement their own policies to get renewable energy built at scale and speed, in the best interests of consumers, while ensuring competition and consumer choice remain."

Under the 2008 transmission and distribution licence, which runs to April 2028 with what CUC describes as a reasonable expectation of renewal to 2048, the company has exclusive rights to carry and sell electricity on Grand Cayman; independent renewable generation reaches customers either through CUC's distributed generation programmes or through utility-scale plants procured by URCO and sold to CUC. The licence sets a target return on assets of 8.50% to 10.50% for 2026.

Two sets of numbers

On cost, Mr Whittaker said the fuel charge "averaged CI$0.20 per kWh in 2025 and CI$0.23 in 2024, and that is the fuel alone, before the energy charge that pays for the plant and the grid". He said the utility "has itself said publicly that utility-scale solar comes in under 10 cents per kWh, and competitively procured solar with storage lands in the region of 10 to 14 cents all-in, fuel and plant together, fixed for 20 to 25 years". The only public LNG figure, he said, was CUC's own estimate of an energy cost of "approximately half" of a diesel cost it put at CI$0.25 per kilowatt-hour, which "excludes the import terminal, storage, regasification plant and engine conversions, all of which would be added to the rate base and paid for by customers, and it assumes a delivered gas price nobody has published".

CUC's figures, given to TCJ on 13 October, are that five generating units upgraded in 2025 are "largely ready" for dual-fuel conversion and represent about 64 megawatts, or 39% of its 166 megawatts of installed capacity, with a further 40 megawatts convertible; that electricity from converted engines could cost about half current diesel costs; and that if LNG supplied half of fuel-based generation by 2029 it would save about CI$41.4 million a year, a 13% cut in the average residential bill. In written answers of 20 October, reported by TCJ on 25 October, a company spokesperson said CUC had initiatives that could displace up to 80% of Grand Cayman's diesel use within three years, saving more than $75 million a year, subject to "appropriate approvals" it had not received; the company did not say how much rests on gas and how much on renewables. CUC told TCJ it had long advocated reducing reliance on diesel and continued to support utility-scale solar, and its sustainability report commits it to the policy's 70% goal for 2037.

Mr Whittaker argued that the lowest single price is the wrong measure. "A sole focus on utility-scale power at the lowest cost ignores land use and the many other benefits an 'all of the above' approach provides," he said. "You would need thousands of acres of land to build hundreds of megawatts of solar farms if that were the only focus, while vacant rooftops, parking lots and developed spaces sit unused." On installed cost he said prices were "very competitive with the average prices in North America", citing the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory's quarterly pricing data.

Could solar carry the islands

Asked whether Cayman could rely on solar for the majority of its power, he said: "Yes. For most of the year we could produce the majority of our energy from solar, with the existing fossil fuel generators as backup for a minority of the year, and that reliance would only continue to diminish over time. This is not a CREA aspiration; it is Cabinet-approved policy." He cited Kauai, "an island grid smaller than Grand Cayman's", which he said runs at around 60% renewable with solar, storage and hydro, and South Australia at above 70% wind and solar across a year, both with batteries carrying the evening peak. "Cayman already has a 20 MW battery on the grid," he said.

That battery, commissioned at North Sound in September 2024, is credited by CUC with a 3.2% improvement in fleet efficiency and US$4.6 million in fuel savings in 2025; its sustainability report calls it "a vital bridge, providing the grid stability needed to integrate large-scale solar power". The fuel charge rose from CI$0.140253 per kilowatt-hour in May to CI$0.2255 in September, and the government's cap of CI$0.18 on the first 2,000 kilowatt-hours cost it CI$3.92 million in rebates to CUC and Island Energy between 1 June and 31 August, with a further CI$3 million approved to carry it to 31 December. CUC burned about 40.6 million imperial gallons of diesel in 2025 at an average of US$3.55 a gallon, a net fuel bill of US$141.6 million passed through to customers without margin.

What the Premier has asked URCO for is a report with a timeline, to be assessed over the next 18 to 20 months. What the policy asks for is a renewable share ten times larger within four years. The association's answer is that the second can be met only by spending on renewables now, and the utility's is that gas can halve its generation cost from 2029. Which of the two the regulator's analysis favours is the decision the government has said it wants in hand before the next political term.