After more than two years of adapting to unique circumstances caused by the onset of the novel coronavirus pandemic, stakeholders in the utility sector are sounding the alarm that their operations have changed.

As a result, the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR) has committed to conducting several reviews intended to highlight changes in the utilities sector and explain what the sector might look like in the post-pandemic world.

Speaking at the OUR’s 8th annual director general’s stakeholders’ engagement, director general at the OUR Ansord Hewitt said, “We are proposing to do an electricity market and pricing study. Change is taking place in the electricity sector along with the disruptive effect of new technologies, it is critical for the regulator to understand the possible configurations the market could take and the associate price trajectory.”

He said the study will be conducted within the current 2022/23 fiscal year.

Director of energy studies at the University of Florida, Dr Ted Kury, explained that one of the emerging trends expected to gain prominence in the post-pandemic period is the expansion of standalone micro-grid systems.

“A lot of times when we talk about micro-grids, we’re talking about systems that rely on the greater utility system for backup purposes and that’s not always the best application of a micro-grid, but this block energy really is a micro-grid,” said Kury.

A micro-grid is a decentralised group of electricity sources which can operate connected to the traditional wide-area grid (macro-grid), but is able to disconnect from the wide-area grid and to function autonomously in island mode.

“You’ve got a housing development where it pairs solar panels on the roofs of homes with energy storage facility right at the home site and all of the houses in the neighbourhood share the same technology and they share the electricity storage,” Kury explained.

He said it is important to keep an eye on these developments because they can significantly alter spending patterns in the utility sector.

“We’ve got a lot of opportunities in changing the way people produce and consume energy and it’s important to note that in most of these cases the flow of electricity probably isn’t going to change, but the flow of money absolutely will. We need to understand how that flow is changing because it is going to have an impact on our service providers and customers.”

At the same time, Hewitt announced that the OUR is putting plans in place to facilitate innovation in the information and communications technology (ICT) sector.

He said, “we are going to be looking at mechanisms to enable emerging innovation, it’s what people in the industry call a regulatory sandbox. Simply put, if somebody wants to test a new product in Jamaica there’s not a coherent regime for testing licences, we are going to try to address that to the extent that we do not need legislation to do so. We will to the extent that it requires legislative recommendation, we’ll also provide those.”

In the meantime, a KPMG post, which explores what the utilities sector might look like in the post-pandemic world, prioritises data analytics.

“We all recognise the importance of data to our businesses — in understanding our customers, in identifying process improvements. If anything, COVID-19 has accentuated that. What it’s also done is highlighted the need for greater data sharing between the government and the private sector. Take the food sector, where more sharing of data between the government and the food retailers has enabled support to be given to those who are most in need,” wrote Simon Virley, KPMG Partner, UK head of energy and natural resources.