Skeeta Carasco
National Utilities Regulatory Commission
Regulatory Economist
Skeeta Carasco is the Regulatory Economist at the National Utilities Regulatory Commission (NURC), Saint Lucia’s water and energy sector regulator. She engages in work related to tariff setting, research, monitoring of utilities, data collection and sector policy. Ms. Carasco is engaged in the NURC’s preparatory work for establishing renewable energy prices and undertaking the country’s first triennial water and sewerage tariff review. She also monitors the dredging fee which was established to fund the rehabilitation of the island’s major water reservoir which became heavily silted in the aftermath of hurricane Tomas in 2010. In addition, she reviews interim and final rate of return submissions made by Saint Lucia’s electric utility . Ms. Carasco has undertaken research and presented at the Organization of Caribbean Utility Regulators (OOCUR) annual conference. Her research has addressed critical issues such as the regulators role in incentivizing water utilities to build resilience to hurricanes in light of the region’s vulnerabilities and methodologies and rate design for distributed generation. She previously worked as the Research and Development Officer at Saint Lucia’s Investment Promotion Agency and as a Research Intern at the Research and Economic Analysis Department of the Central Bank of Barbados where she presented a paper on the Adequacy of Foreign Exchange Reserves in the Caribbean during the Central Bank of Barbados’s Annual Review Seminar. Ms. Carasco represented Saint Lucia’s National Youth Council on the Project Steering Committee of Saint Lucia’s Basic Needs Trust Fund from 2008 to 2009 where she was engaged in evaluating water projects designed to expand water services to poor and underserved communities. In 2014, Ms. Carasco became the youngest of 14 Commissioners appointed to Saint Lucia’s National Vision Commission, a body with the mandate to engage the populace to develop a vision and strategy for implementation for the island. Ms. Carasco holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics and Accounting (First- Class Honours) and a Master’s Degree in Economics with distinction from the University of the West Indies St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago. She has also attained a PMP (Project Management Professional) certification from the Project Management Institute. Since joining the regulatory world in late 2014, Ms. Carasco has received specialized training in utility regulation from the Public Utility Research Centre of the University of Florida, the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissions and the Institute of Public-Private Partnerships.