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“Out of an installed capacity of 249 megawatts in the metropolitan region, only 30 megawatts are actually available, mostly at the E-power plant in Port-au-Prince,” revealed Dr. Evenson Calixte, Director General of the National Energy Sector Regulatory Authority (ANARSE), during his intervention in the IDB’s (Inter-American Development Bank) Reflection Wednesday last week. He pointed out that energy production is very low, since there are only ten additional megawatts available for the rest of the country, including 8 megawatts on the Caracol power grid. Regarding this grid, it should be noted that it supplies electricity to the municipalities of Caracol, Limonade, Trou du Nord, Sainte-Suzanne, and Terrier Rouge.
“We can indeed notice that these are extremely serious and terrible data, hard to understand, but it’s the reality in Haiti with an extremely low energy supply,” regrets the head of ANARSE, clarifying that the data shared during his presentation are recent, as they are dated May 2026. Other updated data from 2026 were presented by Evenson Calixte. In Haiti, only 35% of the population have access to electricity. In the Dominican Republic, almost 100% of the population have access to electricity. In Latin America and the Caribbean, the electrification rate is about 97%. However, in this region, around 20 million people do not have access to electricity, with over 7 million of them in Haiti.For Evenson Calixte, the issue of access to electricity is a big challenge, but it’s not the only one. “There are many challenges: limited access to electricity, the metropolitan area of Port-au-Prince has a demand of about 500 megawatts, yet the available power is only 30 megawatts. Electricity production is based on heavy fuel oil and diesel, which leads to extremely high production costs. Political instability and gang violence also have a significant impact on the rollout of energy projects. The blocking of projects in Port-au-Prince is obvious. There’s also the difficulty of attracting private investment in the energy sector and ANARSE’s lack of strong roots in this sector,” said Mr. Calixte, noting that these challenges also present business opportunities. The energy sector in Haiti is a very large market.
With so many challenges, the energy transition is becoming a necessity, according to the Director General of ANARSE. Firewood and petroleum products are the main sources of energy in Haiti. “Our challenge is to turn this survival energy into modern energy and increase access,” said Mr. Calixte, highlighting that this energy transition is being carried out along three axes: “- expanding access to electricity through the deployment of regional grids and off-grid solutions; gradually replacing firewood with modern solutions (biogas, electric cooking, LPG, etc.); – gradually reducing the use of petroleum products by using local resources (solar, hydro, wind, biomass).”For a successful energy transition, there is a roadmap with goals to achieve by 2032: double the electricity access rate with around 250,000 new connections, have a capacity of between 40 to 60% renewable energy depending on the network, reduce technical and commercial losses to less than 35%, produce around 300 megawatts of reliable available capacity; secure $250 million in public and private investments, implement public-private partnerships (operating rights, licenses), have a modern legal framework that encourages investment in renewable energy. The ultimate goal is to build a more resilient energy system.
