Haiti Partnership
The USAID-NREL Partnership is working with Haiti to expand energy access through long-term energy sector planning support and minigrid development and deployment.
Throughout its history, Haiti has experienced repeated natural disasters, including hurricanes, tropical storms, flooding, and earthquakes. The country's infrastructure and small national grid are vulnerable to blackouts, energy price volatility, and other destabilizing forces.
As such, rebuilding Haiti's energy systems with a focus on stability and affordability is critical. Haiti's efforts to spur economic growth, improve access to education, and enhance quality of life require access to secure and reliable power.
Activities
USAID and NREL are helping the Government of Haiti develop an energy plan to inform energy sector development and support energy policies. This plan is a long term, referenceable, strategic plan for energy stakeholders, inclusive of milestones, budgets, and business decisions associated with each task of the plan. Using RE Data Explorer, high-level energy targets will be identified based on technical potential. In addition, a power sector mix analysis will be performed for a 20- to 30-year timeframe. NREL is also working with stakeholders to identify key policies using policy analysis tools. Based on the results of the analysis and stakeholder feedback, potential policies will be identified for design and implementation.
To empower Haitian stakeholders to explore modeling scenarios for energy planning, USAID and NREL developed a training series on the Engage tool. The series includes a general overview of how Engage works along with tailored exercises that target Haiti’s specific energy needs, such as modeling the capacity expansion of the bulk power system, fuel scarcity challenges, the development of microgrids, and the economic viability of transmission strategies.
USAID Haiti Training Session 1: Engage Orientation
Training Session 1 English Report | Training Session 1 Francais Report
Training Session 1 English Webinar | Training Session 1 Francais Webinar
USAID Haiti Training Session 2: Introduction to Engage
Training Session 2 English Report | Training Session 2 Francais Report
Training Session 2 English Webinar | Training Session 2 Francais Webinar
USAID Haiti Training Session 3: Capacity Expansion
Training Session 3 English Report | Training Session 3 Francais Report
Training Session 3 English Webinar | Training Session 3 Francais Webinar
USAID Haiti Training Session 4: Resilience and Power Sector Planning – Part 1
Training Session 4 Part 1 English Report | Training Session 4 Part 1 Francais Report
USAID Haiti Training Session 4: Resilience and Power Sector Planning – Part 2
Training Session 4 Part 2 English Report | Training Session 4 Part 2 Francais Report
In 2019, a minigrid request for proposal (RFP) was released as part of a broader plan to support the development of 54 minigrids in Haiti, incorporating significant shares of renewable energy. The RFP was developed by the Autorité Nationale de Régulation du Secteur de l'Énergie, the Government of Haiti's electricity regulator, and the Energy Cell within the Ministry of Public Works, Transportation and Communication, with advisory support from the World Bank, USAID, and NREL. The RFP lays out key regulatory elements to enable successful minigrid deployment, including licensing, service levels, power quality, technical standards, tariffs, and preparation for grid arrival.
To support the minigrid RFP process, NREL provided a training to 30 renewable energy developers identified by the Government of Haiti as prequalified bidders. The developer training was broadly aligned with NREL's quality assurance framework for minigrids, which provides a flexible approach and guidelines for developing safe, high-quality, and financially viable minigrid power systems for remote customers.
Demand Assessment and System Design – Developer Training
Building on the training for project developers and support for the RFP, NREL provided a 3-day virtual training to Government of Haiti stakeholders on developing a broader policy environment for minigrids and use of the RE Data Explorer to support renewable energy deployment more broadly. The training was developed in close collaboration with Energy Cell, a key Government of Haiti partner under this effort.
Demand Assessment and System Design – Government Training
Financing and Tariff Considerations, Financing, and Operations and Maintenance – Government Training
To address critical energy access needs, Haiti is expanding solar minigrids across the country, particularly through the Haitian Program for Access to Solar Energy for Rural Communities. However, often the land best suited for deploying solar generation is also best suited for agriculture for small-holder farmers—thereby creating a potentially complicated tension between energy access and local food security and livelihoods.
Agrivoltaics is a rapidly expanding solution that pairs agriculture with solar (Agriculture + Photovoltaics = Agrivoltaics)—creating energy and providing space for crops and animal grazing under and between panels.
NREL performed an initial feasibility analysis and stakeholder engagement project to evaluate the potential for agrivoltaics in minigrids contexts in Haiti. This analysis leveraged both techno-economic modeling as well as interviews with multidisciplinary stakeholders from the government, minigrid sector, agricultural and community non-governmental organizations, and development partners working in Haiti to:
- Assess the viability of integrating agrivoltaics into minigrids balancing the competing needs for energy access, agricultural production, community buy-in, and financial viability
- Identify clear considerations across a variety of technical aspects including agricultural suitability, engineering design, productive use of energy, business models, and stakeholder engagement to inform stakeholders on how to effectively adapt agrivoltaic solutions to the minigrid context
- Develop key recommendations to inform potential pilot projects for agrivoltaics in Haiti.
Download the full report: Adapting Agrivoltaics for Solar Minigrids in Haiti, NREL Technical Report (2024) in English | Haitian Creole
Read more about NREL's INSPIRE Agrivoltaics work.
NREL worked with the Autorité Nationale de Régulation du Secteur Energétique, Ministère des Travaux Publics, Transports et Communications, Technical Execution Unit of the Ministry of Economy and Finance, and Electricité d'Haïti to identify a key technical need for integrating resilience into energy sector planning for Haiti.
To build capacity for the Government of Haiti on the topic of resilient energy systems, NREL conducted four 1-hour workshops focused on the USAID-NREL Partnership's Resilient Energy Platform and Power Sector Resilience Planning Guidebook. These trainings focused on building technical capacity to understand key metrics and definitions for resilience and importantly how to assess vulnerabilities for power system operations and infrastructure and develop robust stakeholder-driven processes for developing potential mitigation strategies.
Watch the recordings for the workshops:
Workshop 1: Introduction to Power Sector Resilience
Workshop 2: Power Sector Threats and Impacts
To support electrification planning and energy access in Haiti, NREL worked with USAID, the Universite d'Etat d'Haiti Faculté des Sciences (State University of Haiti Faculty of Sciences), and other stakeholders to develop an 11-module training curriculum for off-grid solar in Haiti. The course is designed to be a high-level overview of key concepts for off-grid solar and its applications in Haiti. Anyone with an interest in learning about off-grid solar in Haiti including university students, government partners, nongovernmental organizations, funders, development partners, professionals, etc. are encouraged to use the material. No prior knowledge of off-grid solar or Haiti is required.
The course is self-paced and covers a variety of topics across the off-grid space including energy access in Haiti, off-grid solar products, market potential in Haiti, supply and demand-side considerations, system design, installation and maintenance, off-grid solar business models, financial modeling, gender and energy access, productive use of energy, and climate adaptation.
View a webinar overview of this training series on YouTube.
Full course modules in both English and French:
Foundations of Off-Grid Solar in Haiti English | Foundations of Off-Grid Solar in Haiti Francais
Module 1: Basics of Electricity, Energy Access, and Off-Grid Solar
Module 1 English | Module 1 Francais
Module 2: Key Products and Quality Assurance for Off-Grid Solar
Module 2 English | Module 2 Francais
Module 3: Market Potential for Off-Grid Solar in Haiti
Module 3 English | Module 3 Francais
Module 4: Understanding Off-Grid Solar Customers
Module 4 English | Module 4 Francais
Module 5: Designing and Modeling Off-Grid Solar Systems
Module 5 English | Module 5 Francais
Module 6: Installation, Operations, and Maintenance of Off-Grid Solar Systems
Module 6 English | Module 6 Francais
Module 7: Elements of Business Models for Off-Grid Solar
Module 7 English | Module 7 Francais
Module 8: Financial Modeling for Off-Grid Solar
Module 8 English | Module 8 Francais
Module 9: Gender and Off-Grid Solar
Module 9 English | Module 9 Francais
Module 10: Productive Use of Energy
Module 10 English | Module 10 Francais
Module 11: Climate Adaptation and Resilience
Module 11 English | Module 11 Francais
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