It was reported in THE VINCENTIAN newspaper of 21st April 2023, that St. Vincent Electricity Services Limited (VINLEC) will increase the Fuel Surcharge rate applicable on bills for April 2023 up to $0.6906 per kWh, which is an increase of $0.17 from the previous month’s rate of $0.5245 per kWh.
The VINLEC surcharge is way too high and unnecessary!!! The surcharge is actually a charge on our people to pay for the incompetence of the ULP regime. There’s no reason why SVG should not be generating all our electricity from sustainable sources of renewable energy. The fact that the ULP regime has been in office since 2001 and not converted to 100 per cent renewable energy is pure incompetence.
The VINLEC fuel surcharge is taking a lot of money out of our people’s pocket when it is not necessary. If we generated all our electricity from sustainable sources of renewable energy, then not only would there be no need to charge a fuel surcharge, but the cost of electricity would be a whole lot cheaper too.
The surcharge is just throwing our people’s money away into Venezuelan oil producers’ pockets.
“The change in the fuel surcharge rate results from VINLEC having to pay more for fuel in March, and reduced electricity generation at the hydro-stations due to the current dry season,” the company said in a press statement.
This is nonsense! If we had all our electricity produced by renewable energy, then when water flow was low, we could get more from solar and wind and wave sources.
VINLEC has also said. “We continue to encourage customers to employ conservation methods where possible, to help mitigate the impact of high fuel costs.”
Again, nonsense! There would be no need to conserve electricity if we had all our electricity produced by renewable energy, then we could get more from solar and wind and wave sources.
All the millions of dollars wasted by the ULP regime on the useless geothermal project should have been invested in sustainable sources of energy such as renewable energy in SVG, to secure our people with a reliable, continual source of electricity at a much cheaper price.
Leader of SVG Green Party, Warrant Officer Ivan Bertie O’Neal, BSc (Hons), MSc, MBA, has frequently called for our country to generate all our electricity from sustainable sources of renewable energy, such as wind, solar and waves.
We need also to increase the amount of electricity generated by hydro, by having more turbines on the same river. That way, even when water flow is low, the water that generates electricity at the first turbine can also generate more electricity from other turbines when is flows lower down the river. We should produce more electricity from the same body of water, rather than hope for more water to produce more electricity. We can’t control how much rain falls, but we can control how we use the rain that does actually fall.
SVG needs change. The VINLEC surcharge is way too high and unnecessary. The surcharge is a charge for the incompetence of the ULP regime. SVG needs a competent government.