Energy storage is beginning to gain scale in the Dominican Republic, so Unitrade claims to currently have a growing pipeline of projects for the commercial and industrial (C&I) segment , a sign of the growing business interest in incorporating batteries to manage consumption, optimize operation and complement renewable installations.
“We are the only distributor that, in the first quarter, has placed approximately 2.5 MWh of commercial and industrial storage capacity, purely in 215 kWh Huawei Digital Power batteries. And we currently have around 60 MWh in the pipeline for commercial and industrial applications by the end of this year,” said Juan Carlos Reyes , Energy Efficiency Manager at Unitrade.
“The boom is starting now,” he stated during the Future Energy Summit (FES) Caribbean meeting before more than 400 renewable energy market leaders from Central America and the Caribbean.
The executive argues that the market is incorporating new applications that go beyond traditional energy backup, whether it be frequency regulation, backup, arbitrage or energy management.
This expansion is occurring in parallel with the growth of distributed generation in the country. According to official data, the Dominican Republic has 487 MWp of installed distributed solar generation capacity, representing more than 3% of the electricity consumed nationwide.
The evolution has accelerated in recent years. The country went from 131 MW in 2019 to more than 483 MW in 2025 of interconnected distributed generation under the Net Metering Program. As solar penetration increases, batteries are becoming increasingly important for maximizing self-consumption and managing demand.
In that scenario, Reyes believes that the technological choice no longer depends solely on economic or efficiency variables, but that the key to developing a project, apart from integration with the network, is "having a partner, or manufacturer that can provide a response" and "technology available most of the time."
“We are not only looking to have a park, but also the operational peace of mind that it will always function at 100% uptime, without worrying about any kind of problem,” he remarked at the meeting held in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
Renewables plus storage towards 2030
Beyond current growth, Reyes envisions an increasing convergence between renewable generation and storage across all market segments (residential, C&I, and utility scale). Adding to this cost reductions, the result would be continued adoption of these technologies in the coming years.
“The future is entirely green, with self-sufficiency in every home and industry. The technology is there, prices have come down significantly, but the most important thing is that every industry and every home is allowed to be independent and that the government enables this transition, that the government is the one that drives this transition to energy independence,” he concluded.