PowerGen and the independent power producer model
In December 1994 T&TEC sold its generating assets to PowerGen, a company it kept 51 percent of beside private investors, and since then independent power producers have generated Trinidad's electricity for sale to T&TEC; the regulator put their contracted capacity at 1,754 MW for 2023 to 2027, against a maximum demand of 1,356 MW in 2021.
1,754 MW, contracted generating capacity at the four ipp power stations, 2023. 1,356 MW, t&tec system maximum demand, 2021. Regulated Industries Commission, Final Determination for the Electricity Transmission and Distribution Sector of Trinidad and Tobago 2023 to 2028, retrieved 2026-10-17.
The move, and what it needed
T&TEC divested its generation into a company it controlled with private shareholders, paid for the assets in equity, and then bought all output under take-or-pay contracts while supplying the fuel itself, so private partners ran plants with guaranteed revenue and no fuel risk.
Preconditions
- A state gas company able to supply cheap natural gas to the utility
- A single-buyer utility whose contracts private investors trust to be paid
- Existing generating plant the state could sell into a joint company
Limits: Both numbers are inside a long PDF: the contracted capacity is a note under Table 7.7 and is a projection for 2023 to 2027, and the maximum demand is in Table 6.1. Contracted capacity measures what T&TEC pays for, not what the plants delivered, and respondents to the regulator objected that the take-or-pay contracts make customers pay for excess capacity. Not all of that capacity is joint: the 720 MW Union Estate plant (TGU) began as a joint venture with AES, but the state bought AES out in July 2013 and has owned it outright since, so the public-private part is PowerGen, 51 percent T&TEC, and the wholly private Trinity Power. The state also supplies the gas the plants burn, so the private side carries plant risk only. The power purchase agreements are not public, so prices and performance terms cannot be checked.