The Barbados Light & Power Company using Russia Vs Ukraine as an excuse advises that dramatically increasing global oil prices will have a notable impact on the April 2022 Fuel Clause Adjustment (FCA). The FCA component of customers’ bills is a variable cost and directly influenced by the cost of oil on the global market. Fuel cost is passed directly to consumers as incurred. This is a legal means of bypassing the Fair Trading Commission‘s directive.

Light & Power advises that customer bills issued this month will be impacted by this 22 percent rise in the fuel portion of customers’ bills will result in a notable impact to monthly electricity costs. If your bill was approximately $150 on average at the end of the month, then it becomes $183 but Government is advising against salary increases? Srsly?

“We know that these are significant and impactful changes month over month, and we also know that the cost of fuel may continue to be high for the foreseeable future,” continued Mr. Greaves. “Light & Power urges customers to use electricity wisely. We also want to assure customers that we are unwavering in our commitment to transitioning from fossil fuel-based generation toward renewable energy sources. Easing our reliance on foreign oil will enable us to bring greater stability and predictability of energy costs to customers.”

“With this considerable jump in the Fuel Clause Adjustment due to global events beyond our control, we all need to be as efficient as possible with the use of electricity in our homes and workplace to ease the impact of the rise in the world price of crude oil,” added Greaves. “We implore customers to consider small changes that will have an immediate impact on energy costs such as switching to LED lighting, unplugging unused electronics to minimize standby power, and prudently managing air conditioning use. Every little effort matters.”

We will continue to keep you up to date on how your electricity bill may be affected by this global energy crisis. Instead of saying they can absorb half the FCA for an initial 12 months, this also happened in 1982 when outages occurred and they said imcreases were necessary to allow for new generators to be bought for the then new Spring Garden plant