Last week, K&M visited St Vincent and the Grenadines and Antigua and Barbuda to advance its tasks on the World Bank’s Caribbean energy resilience project. Lenny Golbin (pictured right), K&M’s managing director of technical services, participated in site visits and meetings with local utilities.

Mr. Golbin explained: “The project is driven by the expected increase in the severity and frequency of severe weather events such as hurricanes and storms impacting Caribbean islands due to climate change. To be able to withstand theses impacts, the utilities should improve resilience of their power generation and transmission and distribution systems. The goal of the project is to identify optimal ways of addressing this.”

Drawing from its 32 years of experience in the region, the firm is assessing the impact of recent devastating storms on the power systems of Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, St Kitts and Nevis, and Antigua and Barbuda. Based on the results of its assessment, K&M will identify the power systems’ vulnerabilities and recommend resilience improvement measures. The firm will also develop investment plans for undertaking them.

The project is part of a series of World Bank initiatives to improve the Caribbean islands’ durability against extreme weather events. In light of their increasing frequency from global climate change, the World Bank is seeking to mitigate storms’ devastation by supporting sustainable infrastructure projects. Shortly after the storms analyzed in K&M’s report impacted the Caribbean, Dr. Jim Kim, president of World Bank, stated “The challenges faced by these small islands are a stark reminder that building resilience is not optional anymore, especially for small island nations. It is the only response to extreme weather events.”

The resilience measures and an investment plan will be presented to the island nations’ stakeholders. K&M is proud to lend its expertise to sustainable energy development in the Caribbean.