Evaluation of renewable energy strategies in the Dominican Republic

Abstract

Dominican Republic electricity sector has been in crisis for decades, because of the ageing grid system, technical and nontechnical losses and the dependency of around 85% of its electricity from fossil fuel. However, the situation in the Dominican Republic is contradicting; the country has high renewable energy potential for generation, the international support, aid and funds, the willingness of the private sector, and the 57-07 law for incentives for renewable energy projects yet out of 200 renewable projects approved only 4 have been successfully implemented and are in operation. Why did so many projects fail? Why has the country had so difficulties making the transition? Those were some of the questions that drove this research. To answer those questions an exploratory qualitative research was undertaken with a pragmatism ideology at its core, due to the lack of documentation on the subject. The research focused on the energy sector especially electricity from renewable sources. To understand the environment for renewables in the country and lack of success in the area twenty-five key stakeholders representing the renewable sector in the country were chosen and through purpose and snowball sampling were interviewed in a semi-structured manner, as to allow for the participants to express the knowledge they possess. Through the literature review and the content and interpretive structural modelling analysis of the interviews, key drivers, challenges, critical success factors, benefits, financial tools and business model were identified, and their interlinking relationship was discovered. This identification and interconnectivity of the parameters aid in the creation of a successful framework for the implementation of renewable energy projects in the country, that could be used be the private and public sector of the country, the auto producers and local and international investors, which was the aim of the research.