The Most Energy PV Site in the Bahamas

On a kilowatt-hour (kWh) by kilowatt-hour basis, solar's your best, but you need to add battery energy storage capacity in order to reach higher levels of penetration,” he noted. “Nassau's [the Bahamas' largest city] is a pretty big grid, and it can take a fair bit of solar without storage,” Burgess continued.

The need to protect the tourism industry is an added incentive. In 2023, the Bahamas opened the first of two solar plants in Grand Bahama. The two solar plants are expected to cut more than 5,000 tons of CO 2 emissions per year. The government pledged to generate 30 percent of the country's energy from renewable sources by 2033.

BPL Chairman Donovan Moxey was quoted in a Tribune Business news report. The Bahamas is a very difficult place to generate electricity, distribute it and sell it, even as compared to other Caribbean islands, Chris Burgess, Islands Energy Program projects director, told Solar Magazine.

The government-owned public Bahamas Electricity Corporation (BEC) has owned the oil-fueled power plants that have supplied the majority of the nation's electricity demands since its authorization under the Electricity Act of 1956.

Because of the instability of the global oil supply and the environmental damage associated with fossil fuels, the Bahamas began actively pursuing alternative energy sources in the twenty-first century. Climate change and rising sea levels are a particular concern to low-lying island nations such as the Bahamas.

The Electric Light Act brought electricity to the Bahamas in 1907. The Bahamas Power and Light Company (BPL; formerly Bahamas Electricity Corporation, BEC) supplies approximately 85 percent of the nation's electricity needs and operates on all the nation's major islands except Grand Bahama.