Dominica Electricity Services Ltd (DOMLEC) said it is losing revenue because it no longer has an exclusive license to generate electricity on the island and many people generate their own power.
Commercial Manager at DOMLEC, Nathaniel George, said this came about after a “new licensing regime” granted by the Independent Regulatory Commission (IRC).
Prior to this, the company had an exclusive license for generating elecrticity.
“So we continue to enjoy an exclusive license for the distribution, but (on) the generation side we have a non-exclusive license and that is the reason why individuals now can have solar systems, and consider wind and mini hydro,” George said.
He noted that since some residents no longer depend on DOMLEC 100 percent for their energy needs, the company has lost and is losing revenue.
Not only that, George pointed out, there are potential hazards on the technical side and the actual operation of the grid.
“Now part of that decision by the IRC also included the need for an inter-connection policy, and what that allows is that it allow(s) these persons with renewable energy to interconnect with DOMLEC’s grid and if they have excess capacity they can in fact sell that back to DOMLEC,” he explained.
However, he pointed out, when the two sytems are interconnected, it “creates an avenue where if they are not hooked upon the grid safely, they could potentially pose danger, not just to DOMLEC employees, but to the general public.”
He said that if, for instance, DOMLEC experiences an outage and “an individual have their own system and they continue to operate their system, more so when we have the outage, and it is not properly interconnected, it has a defected change over switch, it is possible that it continue to feed energy unto the grid while our service men are working on the grid.”
“So that is a very, very serious situation we have to deal with and one where the regulation on that has to be very tight and has to be enforced at all times to protect both our employees and the general public because it can pose a very serious hazard,” George said.
DOMLEC has reported a profit of $8.7-million in 2014 as compared to $8.2-million in 2013.
Dude that is the wrong way to go about defending profits. Grid tie systems from consumer work in other third world countries why do you think it will create problems here?
Domlec has never shown i interest n the plight of its customers. Not even when we come to pay the bills do we feel appreciated… long lines, “booway” cashers and closing at 3 in the afternoon when working people are still, well at work obviously. Then no credit and debit card payments because its too costly for them? What about energy having been too costly for us for decades! You took your measures to cut your cost. Now we are taking ours! Deal with it.
Well why don’t the officials at Domlec give up, and let the Nationalization of the Electric Company happen,,,
In every metropolis where Governments have nationalized public necessities the powers at be have tried to cause destruction and disruption,,,
So whts the problem? You mad now because you have competition with mother nature. Understand the world is changing and people are changing with it. High fuel surcharge is becoming a thing of the past..get wit the program DOMLEC and stop crying or making plans to stop people from being self reliant and innovative with their sources of power.
I cant believe this, this guy must be a Domlecan, certainly not a Dominican. They have squeezed and milked us, enjoyed a monopoly now they crying. We are going green whether you like it or not, and we will use you for distribution. I knew you guys were anti green energy especially the person reporting. BE careful those of you with these systems if they get to squeeze you they will. While, I understand the issue with interconnection, I dont understand why a company with such resources cant do something about it instead of placing the burden of blame of the consumer solely. Go green everybody, I am and even at where I have influence I will. Dont let them make you think that they will send home staff, non of that 8 million in profits they say and they vex really!!Boss so sad to hear this from you
Domlec is taking the entire nation for fools man. Every year they making greater and greater profits, yet they claiming one or two people that using solar or wind is killing them.
population. One of the main reasons that their is limited economic activity in dominica is due to the forever high electricity rates that Domlec is selling.
For a nation that is about 40% hydro powered, the electricity should be cheap, instead its the most expensive in the Caribbean, where the majority of these other countries only use fuel.
Domlec has not invested any money in improving the infrastructure of the grid. By now Dominica should have had a 66kV system which would reduce the massive line losses and thus the cost of producing electricity. A further benefit would be the system stability(this means it would be able to withstand stress without bring down the whole system).
Domlec should also stop wasting money on HIGH speed gen-sets, which are costlier to run.
What Domlec should have done in the first place was,when the talks started about alternative energy,they should have looked ahead and be the first to implement Solar and wind turbines,so they would have a foothold on the way forward.well?
I think he is saying that they have lost their monopoly which allowed them to gouge the people of Dominica.
Dominica can produce tons of coconut and castor oil to make bio diesel to power their generation plant, which would also create jobs for local people producing the oils, but, I guess fuel contracts kills this idea.
Finally, someone at the IRC got wise to the game. The monopoly on generating electricity is no longer, after years of sucking the blood from their customers.
George . He’s indicating that customers are just connecting to DOMLEC’s grid at will. We know that’s not true at all.
There are technical instruments available on the market to regulate the interconnections for lost of power on both sides and there are also monitors available to show the presence of power on any of the lines . now i know Domlec is in the business for a profit but Dominicans have very little money to pay very very high electricity rate, and is the small geothermal plant interconnection too.
On the contrary, the company should be encouraging people to us renewable energy to relieve the load on their grid. After all, they have been shamefully ‘Load Shedding’ weekly to balance distribution. Only in Haiti they are known to cut power weekly to make ‘ends’ meet and so Domlec has introduced that to Dominica. Major incompetence. What has Domlec done to our Hydro potential in Dominica, In the Abundance of Water?? Treasonous!
The Government needs to stop building walls and pouring concrete for a year or two and present proposals together for funding to BUY DOMLEC BACK. A win win for both sides.
Finally Domlec is feeling the little man pain.
So DOMLEC expect to keep making huge amounts of profit on customers all the time? Keep crying Mr George, less money for DOMLEC seems less money for you.
It’s all about money in Domlec’s pocket. It’s good that some people can generate their own power and keep some money in their own pockets.
Complaining,his dad took away his lollipop, because he had one-to-many.
You guys are still racking in (8.5 million in profit) on the back of the Dominican peoples, yet the power stil fluctuates.
Thanks to the lowering of the price of oil, or else you all will still be murdering us will some ridiculous amount to pay making us one of the highest in the Caribbean.
Do you think that you are loved here, nope we genuinely hate you DOMLEC, it’s because we don’t have a choice.You should take a page from Cable & Wireless when we paid 12$ a minute to England, now we can just use my whats App, their internet service still sucks.
Don’t you think that you all made enough money on the hard working peoples of this country, (malgre sa) All these years of astronomical profit in the news, year after year, how do you think that made us feel…..huh
greed (Voracité)
You all never anticipated or envision any form or type of modernization for this country .
Mr George is defending the company that he works for. More money for DOMLEC means more money in Nathaniel George pocket. This company has squeezed all the juice in our system. Some of us lost our appliances in the process; now that the IRC has opened our eyes and articulated our rights Mr George still has the nerve to come and talk crap to us.
They want to have everything to themselves and we have to be forever crying under a frigging company that reaping profits of $8m plus in that little population.
Keep talking Mr George latei eh cleyway Nathanie George pous nous toute.
This is so laughable; it’s like listening to a Charlatan. Is George attempting to tell the public that DOMLEC will allow someone to mess with their grid without first confirming that the person has the required training, knowledge and experience to do so? No one can just hook up to the grid and sell power to DOMLEC. There first has to be negotiations on a tariff. DOMLEC is the one who will do the hooking-up, so any incompetence will be within the power and authority of DOMLEC. Does DOWASCO or LIME or Digicel allow anyone to connect to their grids? C’mon George, wheel and come again.
WHEN the two systems are interconnected… how long will this take…. another 2 years or even more. A need for an inter-connection policy.. Is the accompanying legislation being drafted as we speak and when will it be ready for a 1st reading at parliament. Are you sarcastically implying that people will just get up and connect to DOMLEC’s grid without the involvement of the company.
All Interconnected household inverters have a very secure and reliable automatic off switch when there is no power detected on the grid side. Domlec also requires a second manual off switch accessible to the linesmen at all times. This is not an issue to scare people with. Old technology losing revenue to new technology is a natural process. Get with the program!
SMH…this is a Katt Williams moment. Wonder if he was saying that to an audience or was just a press statement. Would have loved to have been looking at him while he was saying that though.
George……If you don’t know what you talking about keep quiet!! This is happening all around the world and if DOMLEC is not atune to this then we have a problem. This should not even be an issue, since proper connectivity to the grid must and should be supervised by DOMLEC personel. So George, gassa keep quiet!! LOL.
The start of people moving towards renewal energy start with the unwillingness of DOMLEC to carry electricity to certain areas for home builders. They looked at the short term and made it too expensive for individuals to pay domlec to carry electricity in their area with no compensation when others build in the same area. They were only looking at the short term. Like most they forgot about the future.
People pay more for electricity in Dominica than any other place on earth. DOMLEC should have realized they can only rip-off people for so long; we are in the age of technology, it has become simpler for people to generate their own electrical power.
If the owners of DOMLEC were not dumb, they would have utilized all of the rivers in the country, by building a series of hydro generating power plants; that would be the cheapest way to go rather than using those old diesel generators. Dominica, and Guyana are the only two places in the Caribbean with the potential to generate hydro electric power.
Please Domlec! This is called sustainability…it’s a worldwide thing. Get with the program, don’t come with your nonsense. You want to remain monopoly with your high rates, well, I will say Solar is the solution. It may be costly (if you compare it with present bill for the next few years it ain’t that bad) but it’s a great investment that is not harmful to our environment. GO GREEN, I love it:)
This is an uninformed statement to make by the company. There have to be policies and procedures in place for interconnection to be done safely prior to you all getting into any agreement, if this was not done that’s your fault. Secondly, this is the changing times the new dispensation of the market which you operate, you should stop complaining and incorporate strategic initiatives which will allow the company to meet this new dispensation and how the company can change and make profit from the new operating market. staying and bitching will not help the shareholders of the company.
the situation will not go away so the company should have started its strategic planning for operating in the new environment, whether it means that you have to become lean, change the structure of the company or some other ways of operating you should get the ball rolling and stop bitching.
I could shake your big toe over and over again. These are EXACTLY my sentiments. If DOMLEC is presuming that a changeover switch may be defective and potentially pose a hazard to their employees, then they need to put systems in place, maybe a redundant system that could mitigate that potential problem. We’re not going to cry for DOMLEC. If there were ANY proactive management personnel in there, they could have foreseen the coming of this. They had the option a long way back to make moves towards renewable energy sources. They could have taken the initiative and convert their generation system over to solar and wind, providing cheaper rates to consumers, thereby stemming the flow of customers away from DOMLEC. They have only themselves to blame. They need to continue to lose customers if that’s what it takes to reduce the cost of energy in Dominica. FOR FAR TOO LONG we Dominicans have been dealing with service interruptions as often as they occur.
I agree, feed back into the grid from generators is a hazard, particularly for linesmen. Properly connected generators have a transfer switch to prevent this happening but this can be costly to purchase and install and a lot of people with low-output standby generators will simply hook up their appliance to their home circuit without such a device. I don’t know if it is illegal to do so in Dominica but it should be. Perhaps Domlec could give the public some useful advice on this for the protection of their own workers but also for the safety of the public.
Capitalism gone mad! Reports indicate on going profits so what the Hell is this guy talking about?! Don’t let Francisco hear you talk that way.
Scare tactic.Its about time to break away from one power source.I think healthy competition is good.It helps improve the quality of service.
if you do not reconsider your approach you will loose market share just like LIME, dominicans actually hate domlec
Simple solution: world is changing so domlec should get involved in renewable energy. Solar panels and wind turbines need maintenance. There is a natural law that you cannot beat: change and adjustments means survival. Doing the same thing in the face of imminent change means certain extinction. Hope you guys wise enough. Sometimes change is hard but is your choice BTW survival and death. Cannot fight law of nature.
So the question is why does not Domlec offer a renewable energy package to the Dominican consumers and compete with the other renewable providers on island.
Domlec needs to diversified its energy portfolio by providing renewable energy in an effort to maintain or bring new revenues on stream while protecting the environment instead of complaining.
We hear of no innovative solutions to recoup the revenue loses or stop the slide……so look for a price increase.
Ineffective Management!!!!
Domlec may be crying in their beer but this a a natural evolutionary trend, affecting all power companies. the move away from power generated by fossil fuel is promoted by all right thinking governments, yet it is a double edged sword because it also threatens revenue – people who generate their own electricity do not pay vat for example. Only last week Tesla announce its power wall, for storing electricity for prolonged periods, i and I think such developments are unstoppable. Power companies have to adapt and start thinking of other sources of income as will governments, that will have to wean themselves off taxing energy and make it cheaper instead to stimulate investment and growth in industry and services.
Is the profit figures quoted by you in the years indicated correct? The company’s annual report reads $8.84m in 2013 and $8.20m in 2012. Kindly confirm, thanks.
The math doesn’t add up..
This shouldnt even make news. This is happening ALL over the world. Its call sustainability. DOMLEC burns fuel to produce electricity. Solar or renewable energy is clean and safe and does not hard the environment. Get with teh program DA….GO GREEN
I am 100% SOLAR! DOMLEC cuts power in Wesley, and I do not even know. It’s time everyone starts thinking of alternatives to DOMLEC fossil fuels! Even on a cloudy day, my solar system powers the house. Easy to install yourself, with a good electrician (Noah Durban in Wesley).
Change your light bulbs to LED bulbs, and get rid of that old inefficient fridge/freezer… for a greener Dominica.
George this is bull crap excuses,how the hell this will happen,so many people in the US using solar energy and this i have not heard of,You guys need to stop fooling the poor people.
WHAT EVER GREOGE ! Who you think you fooling with that crapy explanation . chupz Domlec think the would bleed us forever just like cables did. This is a new and exciting time for customers we now have a choice . And who would connect to dolmec’s grid without domlec’s techs? Is best you had just kept silence about this instead of exposing yourself for the ….. that you are.
Isn’t Domlec the one responsible for connecting people to there system/grid? So if its not done properly aren’t they the ones to blame? Domlec may be loosing income in the process but does that not mean that they are also spending less? I mean I could be wrong on both counts but….
So what are you saying Nathaniel? That IRC should never have given private individuals the right to generate their own electricity because Domlec would prefer to continue having a monopoly on electricity at our expense?
IKR and they STILL making a HUGE profit