Caribbean Project Pipeline Reset With Coronavirus, Hurricane Season

(bnamerica) Just days into hurricane season, the Caribbean is mounting efforts to contain and manage the COVID-19 pandemic while preparing and adjusting electric power services ahead of a rising number of expected storms.

Standing on the front lines ahead of the hurricanes will be Caribbean power utilities and work crews, which will have to adapt to new social distancing guidelines just as the US NOAA weather service predicts a 60% chance of higher-than-usual hurricane activity in the Atlantic this year.

Electricity demand may be down overall but residential demand has spiked with stay-at-home orders, and utilities still have much to do to prepare before the big storms arrive in the coming months, said Ricardo Case, engineering services director at Jamaican utility JPS.

“With COVID, basically we had to tear down what we had and rebuild it based on a new reality,” said Case on Wednesday during a panel hosted by the OAS and the Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas. 

“A lot of demand curves have shifted and it may not return to pre-COVID.”

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Source: CARICOM TODAY