More funding has been put in place to facilitate the growth of the renewable energy sector in the Eastern Caribbean.
The Sustainable Energy Facility for the Eastern Caribbean; a 71.5 million US dollars loan and grant package was today signed by Dr. William Warren Smith, President of the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) and Luis Alberto Moreno of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).
The signing occurred at the Intercontinental Hotel in Miami ahead of the start of the annual Caribbean Renewable Energy Conference.
The six independent countries of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) – Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines – are island states with small and isolated electricity markets, lacking the scale necessary to import cheaper fossil fuels, such as natural gas, and inadequate development of renewable energy potential.
But the Sustainable Energy Facility has the potential to move these Eastern Caribbean countries closer to energy security; a more diversified energy matrix; and increased competitiveness.
