The Bermuda Environmental Sustainability Taskforce is astonished that the Regulatory Authority has recently chosen to power Bermuda on liquefied natural gas for the latest Integrated Resource Plan.

This follows the recent 300 per cent monthly increase in the facilities charge for solar customers, effectively shutting down the island’s solar businesses and making it cheaper for some customers to remove their panels. Both decisions move us further away from renewable energy targets. RA, where is your energy future vision?

After the LNG decision, it is now understandable why the minister paused the IRP. It is ridiculous that the RA, a publicly funded institution, is paying what will be high legal bills to sue the minister. Effectively, it’s a case of “the people“ suing “the people“ … and we are all going to pay for that.

Furthermore, we call out the potential bias and possible conflicts of interest within the RA, whose chairman, Mark Fields, is the former general manager of Sol Petroleum and whose director, Dennis Pimentel, is a past manager at Belco. There are no consumer activists or renewable energy experts represented within the RA.

Choosing to power Bermuda on LNG would mean Belco will need to invest at least $200 million in a regasification plant and high-risk pipes to bring the high-pressured gas from the East End or perhaps even the West End to its Pembroke plant. Imagine what might happen to our cruise business if there were an incident at a plant in Dockyard, one of the sites being considered.

Read more here: https://www.royalgazette.com/opinion-writer/opinion/article/20260914/kim-smith-other-islands-have-turned-away-from-lng/