The groups also made three main recommendations for Trinidad and Tobago that have been implemented:
• Introducing a reimbursement scheme. To ensure that connection costs are more widely spread across different users, assets eventually shared by customers connecting later must be reimbursed to initial customers by T&TEC
• Setting connection costs with revenue from electricity supply. T&TEC is required to show that a connection is not commercially viable without a capital contribution and that it should be no more than what it would cost to be commercially viable. This approach allows a balanced allocation of costs because a new connection is also a source of future revenue. But large industrial customers still bear the full capital costs of connecting to the network, and connection costs are small relative to the company’s turnover.
• Involving the private sector. Customers can use T&TEC employees or contractors for conducting connection works. But T&TEC should prepare a list of prequalified contractors for customers, specify technical criteria and inform customers about the average costs of works in various areas. Many economies have opened their electricity markets to prequalified contractors—offering more options to customers and helping utilities meet the demand for new connections in a timely, cost-effective way.
As with any new policy, there was some resistance from the party administering the changes. T&TEC initially found it difficult to get its staff to support the new policy. Workers considered reimbursement the most burdensome issue because it required keeping records of the first client and subsequent ones, along with the works concluded for each. The task is tedious, as a detailed break-down of the works and associated costs is needed to identify future parts that benefit customers connected later. T&TEC upgraded its system to track new connections with the required details and provided training to implement the policy. The RIC also extensively publicised the new policy in major newspapers and met repeatedly with T&TEC leadership and distribution staff.
By 2013 T&TEC had implemented the regulator’s recommendations. When installing new connections, the electricity company’s engineers clearly mark the installed equipment and materials and link them with the customer’s records in the utility’s database. If new customers request connections, the utility personnel inspect the location and verify if the surrounding network has been marked earlier. Based on this information, T&TEC staff calculates how much should be reimbursed to previous customers. This reform has allowed for a broader distribution of connection costs in Trinidad and Tobago. It has also lowered the cost for connecting a standardised warehouse as measured by the getting electricity indicator. After the reform the cost of a connection for a small warehouse dropped by more than eight times, to less than $1,000 in 2013.