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Increase off-hour feedin tariff

From "The National Electricity Sector Policy"

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Right now there is minimal incentive to invest in batteries and feed back into the grid. There is also minimal incentive to invest in solar capacity beyond what will cover tier 2 and 3 rates.

One potential way to incentivize increased investment and capacity is to offer a much better feed in tariff for non-peak or non sunlight hours.


This would incentivize investment in over production, batteries, and steady off hours supply if the rate made economic sense, while reducing peak hour fluctuating supply and demand as more people would feed into batteries to benefit from the night rate payback while also leveraging the batteries to smooth their own usage curve an production

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Profile of Joe Zajac
Posted by:Joe Zajac
4 weeks ago
Who has the money for batteries to power a business, a condo, or a house? How will batteries reduce BELCO's capital costs? How about the proponents of solar panels (vendors) reduce the cost of those solar panels, along with batteries, and installation? So, the bottom line, after spending thousands and thousands of dollars for solar panels, batteries, and installation costs, the cost of the vision that profits only the vendors, lacks sufficient benefits and Return on Investment to consumers.
    Profile of Denis Pitcher
    Posted by:Denis Pitcher
    4 weeks ago
    @Joe Zajac who has the money? wealthy old Bermudians, IB execs and the super rich imported under the Economic Investment Scheme to buy up the top tier of homes. Theres been a lot of them. Belco's Capital costs? Electricity production needs a buffer to manage spikes in demand which increases overall capacity and running requirements. Its why Belco added their own battery system. Smoothing power production helps alleviate and lower costs. Competition keeps profits low, there are tons of solar suppliers. They cant control external costs of equipment and labor costs. There is clear ROI if youre in the tier 2 or 3 of Belco rates. If the feed in was shifted for evenings, we could shift the ROI to encourage more local production which reduces heavy fuel imports. That can benefit consumers broadly as it can lower fuel oil production requirements and lower costs. The challenge we have today is we have a progressive rate system that is encouraging those with capital to cut consumtion of the high tiers and shifts the burden of infrastructure costs. Penalizing solar just does more to keep overall costs high.
      Profile of Joe Zajac
      Posted by:Joe Zajac
      4 weeks ago
      @Denis Pitcher Oh no! The wealthy! The wealthy! The wealthy are wealthy because they do not make dumb investments. Why would OLD wealthy Bermudians waste their hard-earned money? Old people are getting ready to die soon. IB execs come and go. They invest their money in stock markets and overseas homes that appreciate in value. None of the IB execs that I know have solar panels. But they have second or even third homes in Canada, UK, and the US. The cost of BELCO's battery system is passed on to consumers. It cannot support the island's demand and is just a bandaid. Also a huge potential environmental issue as we have seen with burning battery farms in the news. Running on standby, BELCO's generators still burn fuel. We still pay for those generators. ALL intermittent "green" energy must be backed up by fossil fuels. Now, keep adding in all those costs and rates will not go down. One more time, "green" energy will not cause rates to go down in Bermuda. The math does not support it. Green UK & Germany are prime example - the highest electricity rates in the industrialized world. Bermuda's 2023-2026 running rate average is #1 overall. Vendors cannot control labor costs? LOL. Vendors cannot control product markups? LOL. There is no challenge for thinking people. Unless costs drop significantly, solar for the average Bermudian is out of reach, let alone adding batteries. Not even the Director of Greenrock has solar panels or batteries. Dare I ask, do you? How about like-minded "green" energy thinkers pool their money and buy a controlling share in BELCO?

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        Posted by

        Profile of Denis PitcherDenis Pitcher on May 5, 2026

        Current status

        proposed