Technical Services
Details of the specific engineering activities to be undertaken are outlined below.
Benchmark Study
The Secretariat will continue the coordination of the Benchmark Study in collaboration with KEMA. During the course of the year 2008 KEMA will publish the Benchmark Reports for the years 2005 and 2006.
Geographic Information Systems - GIS
The mandate of the GIS task Force is coming to an end. At the last meeting held in November 2007, disscussions were held on extending the tenure by two more meetings.
GIS Task Force members are committed to continuing efforts in assisting fellow utilities in developing their GIS. GIS Guidelines for the development of GIS within the Electric Utilities will be produced and a list of key utility GIS professionals that can assist the utilities will be included in the same.
Tariff Survey
CARILEC will be continuing the annual tariff survey among its member utilities.
OHS Workshop
The annual OHS Workshop will again precede the related conference and will be held in early March.
Energy Projects
Collaborative efforts and involvement with regional organizations will continue. CARILEC usually co-hosts and assists regional organizations such as CREDP, CEHI and GTZ in keeping meetings and workshops on energy related matters. Projects undertaken by international agencies that require the input from CARILEC are welcome.
Disaster Management
CARILEC stands ready to assist any of its member utilities that may be affected by a disaster. Consequently, the CARILEC Disaster Manual details the assistance that CARILEC will provide. In order to provide better service to our members CARILEC has partnered with CDERA to provide various services in the area of Disaster Management. Meetings of the Disaster Coordinators among the utilities are held annually to seek ways of improving and removing obstacles to CARILEC providing Disaster Management Services to its members.
Professional Development for Utility Engineers
More work is required in this area in establishing a channel for Engineers to pursue professional development towards achieving Chartered or Professional Engineer Status. CARILEC has realized that this effort should be multi-faceted and may have to adopt the model from the Barbados Institute of Professional Engineers. This model established that the Government incorporate the requirement for Engineers to become professionally qualified in order to be employed in certain capacities within the sector. Since it was made into law, all Engineers are required to attain professional status to work in the industry. At the moment, CARILEC is pursuing accreditation in the form of CEUs and CPDs for Engineers contributing at the engineers Conference and participating in other technically related activities. This will contribute credits to participating engineers that will facilitate to their professional development. Work is still in progress in this important area.