BRIDGETOWN, BARBADOS — The Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), the region’s leading development financial institution, has inaugurated a groundbreaking technical assistance project designed to lay the groundwork for a coordinated, sustainable energy transition across the Caribbean basin.
Named the Caribbean Regional Electricity Grid Interconnection and Renewable Energy Scaling Technical Assistance Project (CREGI-RES), the $1.5 million initiative is being framed as a pivotal milestone for the region’s decades-long push to build a more stable, affordable, and climate-resilient energy future.
Through rigorous technical analysis, CREGI-RES will evaluate four critical pillars of regional energy development: untapped local renewable energy resources, current and projected national electricity demand, cross-border grid interconnection opportunities (including subsea cable connections), and bankable investment pathways. The project’s ultimate output will be a actionable regional roadmap that integrates all these elements to deliver measurable benefits for Caribbean nations.
CDB Project Director L. O’Reilly Lewis emphasized that collective regional action through the initiative unlocks progress that no single small island nation could deliver independently. “The potential benefits could be significant and now must be tested through rigorous analysis,” Lewis noted during the project’s official launch.
For decades, Caribbean energy systems have faced structural challenges that hold back economic growth. Most countries in the region rely almost entirely on imported fossil petroleum to meet their power generation needs, a dependence that pushes domestic electricity tariffs far higher than global averages and leaves local economies exposed to volatile swings in global fuel prices. Despite the region holding enormous untapped potential across multiple renewable energy sectors — including geothermal, offshore wind, utility-scale solar, and hydropower — clean energy currently makes up only a tiny fraction of the Caribbean’s total installed power generation capacity.
To address these long-standing barriers, CREGI-RES will deploy a dedicated specialized advisor focused on grid interconnection and renewable energy scale-up, who will lead development of the comprehensive regional roadmap. The plan will cover everything from physical infrastructure needs for cross-border grids to large-scale renewable energy deployment and the development of functional regional power markets.
The project will also establish thematic working groups composed of national and regional stakeholders, complemented by cross-regional workshops and individual country-level consultations. A core priority of these engagement efforts is identifying and removing outdated regulatory and institutional barriers that have long deterred long-term private investment in the region’s clean energy sector.
CREGI-RES is financed through CDB’s internal Special Funds Resources, with additional financial backing from a coalition of global development partners. Supporting funders include the European Union Caribbean Investment Facility (EU-CIF) Geothermal Risk Mitigation programme, France’s Agence Française de Développement, and the Government of Canada through its regional Sustainable Reliable Green Energy (SuRGE) programme.
Implementation of the project is scheduled to run through early 2028, with the first full draft of the regional roadmap targeted for completion in 2027. When finished, the roadmap is expected to highlight viable, bankable investment opportunities that will expand the region’s total renewable energy capacity, cut greenhouse gas emissions from power generation, bring down electricity costs for consumers and businesses, strengthen Caribbean energy systems’ resilience to climate impacts, and create more inclusive job opportunities in the fast-growing clean energy workforce.
Project officials stressed that these final outcomes will depend on the results of ongoing technical, financial, environmental, social, and institutional analysis, as well as future policy and investment commitments from participating Caribbean countries and their financing partners.
As a flagship initiative under CDB’s Accelerated Sustainable Energy and Resilience Transition 2030 Framework (ASERT-2030), CREGI-RES aligns directly with the development bank’s broader strategic plan, which prioritizes green energy investment across all of its borrowing member countries.