A change in monthly electricity rates that proved unpopular with Belco customers using solar panels must be justified to “let the people judge”, the home affairs minister stated.

Alexa Lightbourne threw down the challenge to Wayne Caines, president of Belco and her Progressive Labour Party predecessor in the Devonshore North West constituency, over the company’s change to the monthly facilities charge paid by its customers, which came into effect on August 1.

Mr Caines responded: “The public deserves the evidence, and I agree. Lower costs, greater transparency and more renewable energy are the right goals for Bermuda, and Belco shares every one of them.”

He said the statement from Ms Lightbourne came with “a number of factual inaccuracies” on how the company sets its rates.

Mr Caines added: “Belco supports customers who choose solar, but solar homes still rely on the grid every day, including every night and when there is cloud cover.

“Before August 1, customers without solar were helping to pay part of the cost of keeping homes with solar connected. That was not a fair distribution of cost.”

Their exchange came a day after the minister said Belco’s lawyers had applied for an injunction pausing the Government’s plans to legislate for “a fairer feed-in tariff”.

That tariff, which is a credit for eligible customers, sets the payment given to producers of renewable energy for any excess power fed into the island’s electric grid.

Mr Caines responded that the power company had applied to the courts for a 60-day pause on the plans, to allow it sufficient time to review the proposals.

When the company announced its August 1 rate change to the monthly facilities charge, Belco described the move, approved by the Regulatory Authority, as making electricity bills fairer and more transparent.

However, it was criticised by Greenrock and the Bermuda Environmental Sustainability Taskforce as an impediment to renewable energy, and prompted an outcry from the solar sector.

Ms Lightbourne said yesterday that Mr Caines’s tenure as MP while holding the top job at Belco called for more explanation.

She said: “Those overlapping responsibilities demanded clear boundaries. Voters deserved to know how their interests were protected when they differed from the company’s.”

Mr Caines, who announced his retirement from politics in January 2025, was elected to Devonshire North West in 2017 and again in 2020. His departure paved the way for Ms Lightbourne to win the seat in the General Election of February 2025.

The former national security minister was appointed president of Belco’s parent company, now called Liberty Group, in December 2020, and became Belco president in March 2021.

His retirement from politics came before Belco increased its facilities charge for customers with distributed generation, including households with solar power, from $52.48 to $148.83.

At the time, Ms Lightbourne had said that the “clarity is long overdue” when it came to electricity bills.

However, her statement today said: “A clearer bill is not enough. The charges must be justified.”

Ms Lightbourne, whose ministry is also tasked with addressing the toll of the island’s high cost of living, tallied the “unavoidable” hike in fixed costs as an extra $1,156.20 a year, or nearly triple the previous rate.

She said: “When decisions affect the public’s money, people deserve to know whose interests they serve and who answers for them.”

Ms Lightbourne acknowledged solar customers ought to “pay fairly” for their grid usage, and that customers without solar panels should not carry an extra burden — but she called on Mr Caines to “show the evidence” supporting the increase.

The utility’s feed-in tariff also came under fire from Ms Lightbourne in July, when she said the payment to solar customers for their extra power had been “held low by a flawed calculation at the outset”.

Today, in reference to that credit, she said: “Fair charges and fair compensation belong in the same conversation.

“In May 2025, I issued a ministerial direction calling for fairer, more transparent cost allocation. Parliament subsequently passed electricity amendments incorporating affordability protections into planning. The National Electricity Sector Policy 2026 is now final.

“These reforms must prove their worth through reliable power, justified charges and greater affordability.”

Her statement also touched on the Government’s legal battle with Belco and the Regulatory Authority, launched this August, over the ministry’s decision the previous month to suspend the latest Integrated Resource Plan, which guides the island’s electricity supply.

The plan was put on hold three days after it got approved and published online by the RA.

Ms Lightbourne said it had been “paused to align it with national policy and affordability objectives” — adding that, while the proceedings had been withdrawn, it had left the Government with “hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer-funded legal costs”.

“The public deserves to know what that dispute achieved,” she said.

In his response, Mr Caines said much of the minister’s statement had descended to personal attack.

The Belco president said its new rate for the monthly facilities charge had come in the wake of Ms Lightbourne’s own ministerial direction for “fairer cost allocation”.

He said the island’s complex power supply grid was shared across 36,000 metered connections.

“Those costs stay largely the same, however much electricity a household uses. The facilities charge shows customers plainly what it costs to stay connected and ready to be served.

“The per-kilowatt-hour charges show what it costs to generate the power they use. If those fixed costs were recovered through per-kilowatt-hour charges instead, homes that buy less from the grid would pay less towards the same network, and everyone else would make up the difference.”

Mr Caines also responded to the minister’s remarks regarding the Belco injunction filed this week.

He said the company had been given just four business days to comment on proposed amendments to the Electricity Act — including a move that would “separate planning for Bermuda’s electricity from those responsible for delivering it”.

He added: “Our engineers, operators and planners are trained to run Bermuda’s grid safely and have spent their careers doing it. Their knowledge should inform changes of this scale, and that cannot be done properly in four business days.

“Belco asked for 60 days and has now made an application to the courts for that time. As the matter is before the courts, I will not comment further.”

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