Bahamas Power and Light Company Ltd. (BPL) has officially commenced the replacement of 30,000 streetlights through a LED Street Lighting Retrofit Project funded by the Government of The Bahamas and the Caribbean Development Bank.
The main objectives of the project are to reduce the cost and the environmental impact of street lighting by upgrading existing high-pressure sodium (HPS) and mercury vapor (MV) lights with LED (light emitting diode) luminaires. LED lighting would consume more
than 30% less power than conventional HPS or MV lighting for the same level of lighting, reducing demand on the network (supplied primarily by fossil fuel generation), and lowering the overall cost of street lighting.
This exercise will complement BPL’s efforts with respect to malfunctioning lighting in areas around New Providence.
The existing street lights and waste packaging will be collected and disposed of appropriately. The project also features a climate risk and vulnerability assessment (CRVA) intended to identify and evaluate the potential effects of climate change on BPL’s assets in New Providence and recommend resilience measures to address the identified risks and vulnerabilities and minimize impacts.
This is just one part of the joint agency efforts being rolled out to improve infrastructure throughout the country with similar efforts for the Family Islands to be implemented in the near future.
