Powering Cuba: A model for private investment in wind power in Cuba

• Book ID: 104438604
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2003
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 159 KB
• Volume: 4
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1471-0846
• DOI: 10.1016/s1471-0846(03)00535-3

✦ Synopsis

Cuba's electricity supply is largely based on inefficient oil power plants, fuelled with imported crude oil. Due to increasing world market prices, this production structure poses a constant threat to the Cuban economy. Even the exploitation of domestic oil resources would not change this picture entirely: domestic oil could better be sold on the international market at worldmarket prices than used for inefficient power generation. Electricity generation from wind energy could reduce the depen-dence on oil and also lower the overall costs for electricity production. Therefore, the following proposal was developed. The Cuban government can offer a power purchase agreement for electricity fed to the grid from wind energy equivalent to the variable costs of electricity generation (only fuel and other variable costs) in Cuban power plants on the basis of crude oil at world market prices. Neither cost nor risks would be imposed on the Cuban economy.