RESEMBID Contract for lights

Dana Malcolm

Staff Writer

#TurksandCaicos, March 15, 2023 – The Turks and Caicos government is adding over a hundred hurricane resilient streetlights to the country’s roads and communities through its Resilience, Sustainable Energy and Marine Biodiversity Programme (RESEMBID) partnership. 

RESEMBID, an EU funded project created to benefit all the Overseas Territories and Countries in the Caribbean, along with the Minister of Home Affairs published a March 3rd tender to outfit the country with 140 new solar street lights.  They will come with battery energy storage technology.

Describing the country as one of the most vulnerable member states in CARICOM, the tender says “the electricity sector must maintain and improve its reliability, resilience, cost-effectiveness, and environmental sustainability to drive new economic activity while further enhancing the lives of TCI Islanders.”

Citing the high cost and low production of electricity but also acknowledging the upgrades that Fortis TCI has added to its grid the document lists the overall objective of this project as “to contribute to the acceleration of a reliable, resilient, and environmentally sustainable energy sector in TCI.”

Of the one hundred and forty (140) streetlights, North Caicos will get twenty-five (25); Middle Caicos fifteen (15); South Caicos will get twenty (20); Grand Turk thirty (30); Salt Cay ten (10) and Providenciales will have (40) of the lights installed.

The tender is expected to be awarded and signed by May 1st.