Does anyone know what Bermuda’s energy policy is?

Or if Bermuda has one right now?

The island may or may not have an integrated resource plan right now. One has been published, which means it is official, but the Government says it has been paused. But then it is not clear which IRP the Government is referring to.

Bermuda has a draft energy policy. But it is not clear whether it will be adopted and while claiming to be energy source agnostic and designed to put the consumer first, it has encouraged the island’s main utility to punish people who have installed solar panels.

That is not to say that the Government’s intentions were not good at the start of this dizzying process. Intentions often are good. It’s the end results that rarely are.

The Government is right to focus on cost of living and do what it can to reduce people’s bills on everything from groceries to housing to energy bills.

That is essential to enable ordinary Bermudians to survive in their own country in the face of eye-watering prices.

It is also vital to ensure Bermuda remains a competitive business jurisdiction. The introduction of corporate income tax has taken away a key reason for international companies to be here. Reducing the cost of living and the cost of doing business is essential for the main driver of the economy and the leading source of high-value jobs.

Energy costs are a major part of that. Bermuda has the highest electricity prices in the world. This is not only a major expense for residents, businesses and hotels but it also drives the cost of almost everything else that is sold here.

For that reason, the Government is right to focus attention on this issue.

But there is no magic wand that can be waved to lower energy prices. Belco faces the same labour and building costs as every other business. Importing a relatively small amount of fossil fuel to the island is expensive in and of itself. Belco does not enjoy the economies of scale power companies in larger countries do.

In addition, Bermuda energy policy faces several challenges common to small island jurisdictions.

One is that much of the price of oil or gas is outside Bermuda’s control, determined by international markets, even in the best of times. When the US war with Iran disrupts energy supplies, the price of fuel soars and there is nothing Bermuda can do about it.

The second is that Bermuda and the world face a growing crisis due to climate change. This necessitates that the island move away from fossil fuels to adopt renewable energy. Fortunately Bermuda has no shortage of two renewables — sun and wind.

However, even with plenty of both, there are risks of intermittency; when the sun does not shine or the wind does not blow, the demand for electricity does not fall. So energy either needs to be stored in batteries or an alternative source such as Belco’s power stations need to be online to make up the shortfall.

Bermuda also lacks the landmass to have the vast solar arrays that are becoming commonplace in places such as Texas. Thus it does not have, to any great degree, the ability to generate utility-scale power using solar energy and the development of offshore wind turbines is very slow.

But Bermuda does have thousands of sturdy roofs which can be used to generate power and increasing numbers of businesses and people are installing them, both to reduce their own energy dependence and as a small way of mitigating climate change.

However, there is a profound unfairness in this; those who would most benefit from reduced energy prices — the less well-off — are those who can least afford the high upfront costs of installing solar panels, which would do just that.

Instead, it is businesses and better off people who are, or were, taking advantage of the technology.

This in turn has caused problems for Belco, which has said it must continue to generate sufficient power to support the whole island while its customer base shrinks. This, it argues, shifts more of the cost on to poorer people who are stuck on the Belco grid and can least afford to shoulder more of the burden.

In its recent energy policy paper, the Government appeared to accept that argument and Belco has since moved to adjust its pricing to shift more of the cost of energy production on to people who use solar power. This shift, however, has fallen not on the wealthiest but on smaller homeowners and small business and charities who invested in solar to reduce their own costs.

At the same time, Alexa Lightbourne, the home affairs minister, has moved to suspend the integrated resource plan until her own national energy policy is completed. That policy abandoned the previous targets to transition Bermuda to renewable energy.

There is not space here to describe all of the twists and turns that the energy sector has faced in the last few months.

More broadly, Ms Lightbourne has tried to establish cost to the consumer as the primary determinant for determining energy policy, but this creates the risk that any policy decision will inevitably be short term in an industry that requires long-term planning and investment more than most others.

It would also create a natural bias towards using the equipment and energy sources that are already in place — the same equipment and diesel fuel that is most subject to international price swings and is worst for the environment, both of Belco’s immediate neighbours and the broader community.

At the same time, the confusion over targets for moving to renewable energy also keeps Bermuda dependent on fossil fuels for longer than necessary. This seems especially wrong-headed when, although there are high set-up costs, the long-term advantage of sun and wind is that it is free. Surely that means it is better for the consumer.

Ms Lightbourne was right that the Regulatory Authority’s goal of reaching 85 per cent alternative energy by 2035 was overly ambitious. It’s also indisputable that if the Government was serious about hitting that goal, it would have been vastly more energetic in accomplishing it.

But Ms Lightbourne’s new target of getting to 7 per cent by 2030 is pitifully unambitious and certain to encourage continued dependence on fossil fuels.

In the end, the minister’s interventions into the energy sector has created one thing - mass confusion.