Dennis A. Minott | Arithmetic of Jamaica’s energy autonomy by 2031

For more than half a century, I have worked in and around renewable energy, hydroelectricity, biomass, and solar, examining how Jamaica could use its own water regimes, sunshine, agricultural products, and indigenous resources to end our crippling dependence on imported fuels.

After all these years, I have reached a conclusion that is at once technically conservative and politically audacious: Jamaica could, with sufficient political courage and structured capital reallocation, become substantially energy self-sufficient by 2031.

Officially, Jamaica aims for 50 per cent renewable electricity by 2030. Yet, official data confirm that solar and wind together accounted for only about 12.5 per cent of our electricity mix in 2025. That should trouble us deeply. We possess abundant sunshine, commercially proven wind regimes, easily scalable Leucaena biomass resources, hydroelectric opportunities, and growing possibilities for storage. Yet, after decades of high-level discussion, we remain overwhelmingly tethered to imported oil and natural gas.

Jamaica has treated renewable energy too often as a decorative addition to the old electricity system rather than as the organising principle of a new one.

CAPITAL ALLOCATION REALITY

When critics dismiss full energy self-sufficiency by 2031, they rarely challenge the underlying physics or engineering. Instead, scepticism shelters behind financial fatalism. We are told that transitioning an island grid with a peak demand of approximately 670 to 690 megawatts (MW) away from imported fossil fuels is simply “too expensive”.

That argument rests on a flawed accounting habit: treating the capital expenditure (CapEx) of modernisation as an unaffordable burden while completely ignoring the multibillion-dollar haemorrhage of foreign exchange being spent on imported fossil fuels year after year.

Let us look at the cold arithmetic.

To transition Jamaica’s power sector to an integrated, storm-hardened, green-energy system by 2031 requires deploying approximately US$2.15 billion in capital over five years:

• Solar Photovoltaic (Utility & Distributed Rooftops): 850 MWp – US$722.5M

• Onshore Wind Turbines: 180 MW – US$234.0M

• Dispatchable Biomass (Leucaena-Derived Methane & Hydrogen): 75 MW – US$165.0M

• Hydroelectric Expansion: 35 MW – US$98.0M

• Battery Storage (Sodium-ion / LFP BESS): 1,400 MWh – US$252.0M

• Pumped Hydro Storage (PHS): 100 MW / 800 MWh – US$160.0M

• Grid Modernisation, Automation & Hardening: National Grid – US$320.0M

• EV Smart-Grid Infrastructure: 1,200 Fast Chargers – US$200.0M

To understand why a US$2.15 billion investment is an extraordinary bargain, examine the status quo. Jamaica expends between US$1.2 billion and US$1.5 billion annually on imported petroleum products and LNG for electricity generation and surface transportation. Over the next decade, under a business-as-usual scenario, we will fritter away between US$12 billion and US$15 billion in foreign exchange to overseas fuel suppliers, leaving behind zero domestic infrastructure assets.

Spending US$2.15 billion once to create an indigenous energy system that saves over US$1.0 billion every year thereafter is not a luxury. It is elementary fiscal prudence. The entire transition pays for itself in under three years of avoided fuel imports.

FINANCING THE BLUEPRINT

Mobilising this capital does not require overburdening taxpayers or bloating national debt. It requires structured, multi-tier project financing:

• Private IPP Equity (35% / US$752.5M): Independent Power Producers deploy private capital for solar, wind, and storage assets under long-term Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) yielding levelised electricity costs between 6 and 8 US cents per kWh.

• Concessional Climate Finance (40% / US$860.0M): Blended low-interest loans from multilateral institutions (GCF, IDB, World Bank, CDB) with 20-year maturities and sub-3% interest rates for grid hardening and pumped hydro storage.

• Green Infrastructure Bonds (25% / US$538.0M): Local-currency bond issuances on the Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE) to channel domestic pension funds and diaspora capital into inflation-hedged national assets.

Crucially, this model reconciles with our regulatory framework. The Jamaica Public Service (JPS) can retain its core utility business as guaranteed transmission and distribution (T&D) operator, earning its regulated return on a modernised US$320 million upgraded grid, while generation is opened aggressively to competitive private producers. Because fuel costs are passed directly to consumers under the current regulatory formula, eliminating imported oil and gas drops consumer electricity tariffs from volatile 30-plus US cents/kWh levels down to a stable 14 to 18 US cents/kWh.

EIGHT POLICY MANDATES

To achieve this vision by 2031, we need eight decisive actions:

• Legally durable framework: Enact an Energy Self-Sufficiency Act insulated from administrative cycles.

• Accelerated procurement: Fast-track approvals so solar farms taking months to build do not spend years in bureaucracy.

• Rooftop generation: Turn homes, schools, churches, hospitals, hotels, and factories into a distributed national power station under encouraging net-billing rules.

• Biomass realism: Revive Leucaena-derived green methane and hydrogen (“Energas”) to provide firm, dispatchable power when the sun is down and winds are light.

• Hydro realism: Develop every environmentally sound hydroelectric opportunity for system flexibility.

• Targeted wind expansion: Scale wind power wherever rigorous measurement justifies it.

• Infrastructure storage: Deploy sodium-ion batteries and pumped hydro storage as core grid infrastructure, not accessories.

• Transport electrification: Anticipate electric vehicles as controllable demand assets powered by indigenous electricity.

India demonstrates how rapidly renewable generation can scale. Uruguay, Costa Rica, and Spain demonstrate how thoroughly renewables can dominate a national grid.

The remaining question is direct and uncomfortable: do we possess the political courage to do by 2031 what technology, economics, and the examples of other nations tell us can be done?

The engineering is ready. The financials are bulletproof. What remains is for us to act.

Dennis A Minott, PhD, is the CEO of A-QuEST-FAIR. Send feedback to: a_quest57@yahoo.com or columns@gleanerjm.com.