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.