MP Jamale Pringle Says 12 Years of Broken Renewable Energy Promises Left Consumers Exposed to Fuel Price Shocks

If the Gaston Browne administration had kept the renewable energy promises it has been making since 2014, Antiguans and Barbudans would not be so brutally exposed to every swing in international oil prices, Opposition Leader MP Jamale Pringle argued on Thursday.

MP Pringle made the case on Observer Radio's Voice of the People, as households absorb a double blow: gasoline at EC$17.99 per gallon and an 88-cent-per-kilowatt-hour fuel variation charge from APUA that has pushed October electricity bills sharply higher.

"We have a government that has been promising us since 2014 that they're going to invest in renewable energy to help reduce the cost of electricity for the people of Antigua and Barbuda," MP Pringle said. "I am asking you and the people of Antigua and Barbuda: what can you say they would have done to fulfil that promise that was made back in 2014, 2018, 2023?"

"They know that we have no control over the international prices, why aren't we pushing more solar energy to help reduce the cost on the people? Why [is] renewable energy not more affordable to the people of Antigua and Barbuda?"

Page 29 of the ABLP Manifesto

MP Pringle came armed with the governing party's own words, citing the Antigua and Barbuda Labour Party's 2018 manifesto.

"They pledged that they're going to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy, such as solar, to lower the cost of producing electricity and reduce the price of delivering it to the public, page 29 of their 2018 manifesto," he said. "That's a promise they made to the people of Antigua and Barbuda. Have you heard anything about that? Have you seen that in effect?"

The cost of that gap is now showing up on every APUA bill. The fuel variation charge stood at 55 cents per kWh as recently as March, rising to 70 cents in May and 80 cents in June — a 45 percent jump in three months that RealNews documented as part of the mounting cost of the government's fourth term — before reaching 88 cents this month. The Statistics Division's September report put the electricity index up 42.9 percent year-on-year. Host Adrian Williams noted that APUA has indicated its own fuel bill has nearly doubled, from $11 million to $21 million, since the increases began.

Asked whether he fears APUA will raise rates yet again, MP Pringle said: "Well, I'm hoping that it doesn't, because again the people will be again suffering because of an increase in an expense. And electricity is something that you can't do without."

Insufficient Batteries

The Opposition Leader reserved his sharpest criticism for the state of the country's flagship solar installations at Bethesda and on Airport Road.

"I, for one, cannot understand how we have a solar farm up in Bethesda and one on Airport Road, and out of those two solar farms, not one has any batteries to store the power. Why?" he asked.

"The prime minister would have said there was some corrupt deal with one of his former ministers. But yet still, we have seen no resolution where millions of taxpayers' dollars were spent on batteries, and in my view there is little or no effort in recouping the funds, or ensuring that the batteries come to Antigua."

With storage in place, he argued, the economics change immediately: "If you have a plant so close to the airport, and you have storage capacity, why not take the airport off the grid during the day and allow it to run on solar? You have so many solar [panels] in the schools, but electricity [is] still coming off during the day in schools and government offices, and you're going back to run your generators, which is the same fossil fuel, rather than ensuring that these solar systems are adequately equipped to power the buildings that they own. That is how you cut down the cost that government is complaining about."

No Excuse in the WIOC Shareholding

Pressed by Williams on whether the government's majority stake in the West Indies Oil Company gives it a financial reason to go slow on renewables, MP Pringle said the two are not mutually exclusive.

"You can walk and chew gum at the same time," he said. "I'm not saying that you have to isolate WIOC to push solar. You can increase the access to solar energy, because you have it in abundance, and you can still operate WIOC with the shares."

"I'm not saying that they should bankrupt APUA," he added, "but I'm saying there's a way around it, and we can only get to that if we put our minds and heads together in the interest of offering the people of Antigua and Barbuda relief."

He accused the Prime Minister of saying one thing on the world stage and doing another at home: "You will literally watch these international conferences, and when they are speaking, you have to wonder: is that the Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda? Because the very same thing they're calling on international agencies to intervene on… they're doing worse here."

Asked whether a UPP government would have pushed renewable energy, MP Pringle was unequivocal: "It's something that we are still working to ensure that it comes to Antigua and Barbuda. There must be a greater push for access to it."