The Resilience, Sustainable Energy and Marine Biodiversity Programme (RESEMBID) recently awarded the Ministry of Sustainability & Climate Resiliency more than €1.2 million for its Cayman Islands Government Energy Efficiency Programme.
This programme aims to improve energy efficiency and facilitate retrofits for both existing public sector buildings and National Housing Development Trust (NHDT) homes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and provide cost savings for homeowners and the Cayman Islands Government.
This holistic programme includes retrofits, analyses of existing buildings, developing standards for future buildings, gathering data and developing financing mechanisms to support future projects. The grants will support training components, establishing minimum energy efficiency standards for new builds, and an assessment of the best financing mechanisms to support the retrofit of additional public sector buildings and homes.
“Taking on these projects will help reduce cost of living for NHDT residents, help Government save on recurrent expenditures by reducing energy consumption in public sector buildings and raise awareness about the social, financial and environmental benefits of increasing energy efficiency, which are essential to achieving the objectives of the National Energy Policy.” – Kristen Smith, Senior Policy Advisor (Energy)
After a review of public sector buildings, 13 properties will be selected for an energy audit. Based on these results, three buildings will be chosen for retrofit with energy-efficient devices such as air conditioning and spray foam insulation.
The residential programme includes energy audits and energy efficiency retrofits, as well as the installation of renewable energy for 10 NHDT homes, from the 100kw CORE allocation which was designated to the NHDT in 2020. All selected buildings will also have an energy monitor installed which comes with an app for persons to monitor their consumption in real-time on their smartphones.
The Caribbean Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs) Resilience, Sustainable Energy and Marine Biodiversity Programme (RESEMBID) commenced operations on 1st January 2019 and will be implemented over a period of 58 months. The programme supports the sustainable human development efforts of the 12 Caribbean OCTs, namely: Anguilla, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Montserrat, Turks and Caicos Islands, Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao, Saba, Sint Eustatius, Sint Maarten, and Saint-Barthélemy.
The overall objective of RESEMBID is to support the sustainable human development efforts of participating countries and territories, with the thematic priorities being: Resilience, Sustainable Energy and Marine Biodiversity.
To learn more, visit: https://resembid.org/
