As an island nation with an evolving yet vulnerable power grid, Haiti must strategically integrate resilience into its energy system planning. Leveraging investments in renewables, distributed energy resources, and energy storage is key to improving the resiliency and security of Haiti's power system and electricity supply.
Haiti’s recent battles to modernise its energy sector serve as a stark lesson for how fraught the business of energy transition can be. In the wake of the scandal, the struggle to provide Haiti’s 11 million people with reliable energy – and the desire to attract foreign investment to do so – has taken on an evermore politically charged hue.
Solar energy can be used effectively in Haiti, offering energy self-sufficiency to the most isolated cities in the absence of a power grid. The country’s location in the tropics gives it very strong solar energy potential. It is believed that solar energy will play a fundamental role in access to electricity over the next 10 to 15 years.
More than two years after the 2010 earthquake, Haiti's energy supply remains a significant challenge. “ EDH van kouran, EDH pa fe kado kouran” (EDH sells electricity, EDH does not give away electricity) can be read on the shirts of participants at an awareness-raising activity in Cayes on the need to pay electricity bills.
Power outages in some areas of the country can last for weeks, while in neighbourhoods near Haiti’s National Palace in downtown Port-au-Prince – always politically restive – jerry-rigged siphoning of current has gone on for decades as successive governments dare not act against it.
Haiti's energy access and infrastructure remain critically underdeveloped. In addition, Haiti relies heavily on imported fossil fuels, which are expensive, harmful to the environment, and exacerbate existing challenges to Haiti's energy sector.