What’s the BVI’s electricity cost compared to the region and world?
A study by the United Kingdom firm, Cable.co.uk, has ranked the British Virgin Islands as having the twelfth cheapest cost of electricity in the Caribbean.
The countries which have cheaper electricity than the BVI are Puerto Rico, oil producers Trinidad & Tobago, St Pierre and Miquelon, Guadeloupe, Cayman Islands, St Martin, St Barthélemy, Caribbean Netherlands, Martinique, Aruba, and St Vincent and the Grenadines; in that order.
Despite its ranking from a list of 29 Caribbean nations, the BVI’s global rank is 175 out of the 230 countries analysed in the study.
The sample analysed from the BVI shows that the average cost of electricity is $0.225 per kilowatt-hour (kWh). The territory’s lowest cost is $0.1675 per kWh and its highest is $0.24 per kWh.
The territory’s average cost for power is 32 times higher than Libya, whose cost of electricity is the cheapest in the world with an average of $0.007 being charged per kWh. The Solomon Islands is the most expensive with an average cost of $0.692 per kWh.
The study highlighted that the Caribbean countries are among the highest payers of electricity across the world.
“Most Caribbean nations are in the more expensive half of the study results. Curaçao is the most expensive in the Caribbean with an average of $0.419, while an average of one kWh in Puerto Rico is eight times cheaper at USD 0.049. The Caribbean consists of island nations where electricity generation tends to be more difficult,” the researchers found.
Power generally expensive in small-island nations
The study further noted the countries in which electricity cost is expensive tend to be small-island nations where electricity is harder to generate and/or there are no large-scale power stations.
“Conversely, the cheapest places in the world to buy electricity tend to be countries where either oil and gas prices are very cheap (countries which produce fossil fuels on a large scale), or where household electricity usage is very small and therefore tends not to require a lot of expensive infrastructures,” it added.
Researchers from the UK firm spent more than six months analysing data from 3,883 energy taxes across 230 countries worldwide.
What the BVIEC says
Meanwhile, in an interview with the General Manager of the BVI Electricity Board (BVIEC) Leroy Abraham recently, he revealed the global fluctuation of oil production and cost has impacted the cost of electricity in the territory.
This came in light of complaints made by residents that they have seen an increase in their electricity bill over the last several months.
The General Manager also said the cost for the corresponding fuel needed to produce electricity has been rising steadily in the United States and it has been reported that fuel costs are the highest in almost a decade.
Abraham had noted fixed electricity rate charges have not changed in the British Virgin Islands for approximately 40 years. He said the only element which fluctuates on a monthly basis with respect to rates on a customer’s bill is the “fuel variation surcharge” which is reflective of the market value of fuels.
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BLOOD !!!!!
I don’t believe this study!
To bad there is no sunshine in the BVI. There is no wind in the BVI. Solar and Wind energy are much cheaper than oil and gas.
have you ever tried to find out how much it is to purchase a solar powered unit thatcan take you off gird?
I had someone try and tell me how great it would be so I priced it and BEFORE shipping and installation the units including batteries would cost for my purposes $135,000.00
My bills are just over $20,000.00 a year, so in the 7 years when I have to replace all the batteries and update the panels………
So not cheaper at all at the moment.
Too bad there is no sunshine in the BVI. There is no wind in the BVI. Both solar and wind are now cheaper than oil and gas. We could use that instead if only we had sunshine.
SAY TWO -its the same SH*T with the cable TV companies (cCT) got some wireless boxes that’s now functioning properly professionally and they keep sticking and when they do you have to take them in to be checked out by their so called ENGINEERS , so what are they they doing otherwise ,? AM paying for them $1.39 ) pet .month
It’s misleading to say electricity costs $0.23-$0.24 per kWh when most of us pay going on twice that much once you factor in the fuel charges.
Why would you not say the BVI is in the top 50 most expensive places in the world? Instead you come up with some verbose way of distorting the obvious!
WITH THOSE CABLE COMPANIES AM PAYING 139.00 A MONTH FOR 2 WIRELESS BOXES FROM CCT AND THEY KEEP STICKING , AND ALL THEY HAVE TO SAY WHEN YOU CALL TO REPORT THE PROBLEM IS (YOU HAVE TO BRING THEM IN , IS REALLY PROFESSIONALISM ,I ALREADY TOOK THEM IN SEVERAL TIMES
Number 175 out of 230 is not a good ranking considering that the BVI have around 40thousand people which is the damm size of a college.
Bvi is very small and dense therefore with the easy access to capital a rich place like Bvi has middle of the road is pathetic showing given that they do not have to have much of infrastructure running from long-distance
Get past all the B.S. TOTAL bill devided by kilowatt hours used to see what your really paying despite their fancy math.
Yhe powers that be, Please dont use this study as an indicator to increase the cost of electricity. The cost of living always goes up but minimum wage stays the same.
So these states include the dramatically increased fuel charges? Cause that’s where the whole issue is for us
Well now you give then a reason to sy high it wonder how much you got paid to do this?
A whole article about the cost of power that doesn’t mention
a) solar and wind, we have more than most in the world and could easily have a full renewables system here keeping our costs way down. I heard that many years ago Branson offered us free/cheap solar/wind infrastructure and we refused it.
b) the cost of using a polluting power source like diesel that damages the earth’s life supporting systems that we all rely on. If you don’t factor in the other costs, your survey is worthless.
Meanwhile we move through our lives here thinking that because we are Caribbean and not some big white country we don’t have to even acknowledge global climate change, let alone worry about it. Even after Irma!?!?!
Several years ago, perhaps 15 or so, I arranged for a potential investor and national of Denmark residing to meet with the then Minister of Communication and works; the minister in charge of power plants and electricity infrastructure.
Be reminded that Denmark is the home of wind power generation equippment. At the time Alternative Energy and Solar Power were words still not found in the dictionary. The report from the gentleman and potenti Wind Power Investor was that he did meet with the minister but that he was told that the minister advised that he would have had to meet with the other ministers of government. Apparently the meeting never happened. Meanwhile the cost of Wind Turbines has presumably more than tripled.
It was also rumored at the time that a certain Minister was earning a “Per Gallon Fee” on the Fossil Fuel being imported into the territory.Meanwhile Solar Power is finally in the lexicon of conversations on Electricity; while plans by government are to install Solar Power infrastructure on the island of Anegada, as a starting point.
Country Above Self. #BviLove
Why you all just dont stop using electricity? the supermarkets prices sky high because of the same fuel increase why you all dont do a comprehensive study on that and consumer control legislation? People here behave as though they are removed from the rest of the world when it comes to cost trickling down.
What about the Surcharge? No mention of that