The Office of Utilities Regulations (OUR) contends that Jamaica will not only miss out on savings on fuel imports by switching to natural gas, but would have to spend over US$2.4 billion more to build new plants over the next 20 years if it wants to continue as "business-as-usual".

In its Generation Expansion Plan drafted in August, the OUR examined three main expansion strategies natural gas only, a mix of coal and natural gas and the "business-as-usual"casse over a 20-year planning horizon.

The regulator determined that "the total capacity that will be required by 2029 to both meet the increasing demand for electricity and displace aged existing plants" was 1,360 megawatts (MW) and estimated the cost of building natural gas-fired plants to generate that amount of electricity at approximately US$5.77 billion.

However, the OUR estimates that using a hybrid natural gas and coal strategy the total cost would be approximately US$5.85 billion while business as usual would cost US$8.18 billion.

What's more the natural gas plant build out would require 14 plants commissioned in 12 installations versus the 21 diesel and oil-fired plants that would have to be built in 15 instalments should expansion be undertaken in much the manner it has been done for decades gone.

"The business-as-usual strategy demonstrates that the continued proliferation of petroleum based fuels is not sustainable and unresponsive to the national energy policy objectives," said the report.

"New baseload capacity is urgently required in the system, but given the expected constraints regarding construction time and/or fuel availability, it is unlikely that any such plant can be in place before 2014," it continued. "This study recommends the commissioning 360 MW (3x120MW) of natural gas-fired combined cycle capacity in 2014. Of this amount, 292 MW will be for displacement of aged, inefficient capacity and the remainder for demand growth requirements."