The Bahamas is not one power system. It is a chain of nearly 700 islands, about 30 of them inhabited, and each inhabited island has to be supplied largely on its own. That geography makes the country one of the clearest examples of a problem shared by island nations everywhere: how to deliver reliable, affordable electricity to small communities separated by open water.
Why island power is expensive
On most of the Family Islands, electricity has come from diesel generators. Every gallon has to be bought on the world market and then shipped to the island that burns it. Small plants cannot spread their costs across many customers, and the national utility, Bahamas Power and Light (BPL), has historically supplied the Family Islands at a loss, according to reporting by RMI, the energy research institute that has worked with BPL on island projects.
The second cost is exposure to storms. Hurricane Dorian in 2019 caused an estimated $3.4 billion in damage, about a quarter of the country’s GDP. A system built on long overhead lines and a few central plants is slow to restore after an event like that.
What has already been built
The Bahamas has been testing a different model for several years. After Hurricane Irma in 2017, a 390 kW solar microgrid was built on Ragged Island with BPL and RMI, sized to serve every home on the island. On Abaco, microgrids at Marsh Harbour and Coopers Town now supply a government complex and medical clinics with a combined 3 MW of solar and more than 4 MWh of battery storage, so those services can keep running during and after a storm.
The direction is now national policy. In a February 2026 statement, the Office of the Prime Minister said that 23 microgrid and solar projects are being developed across the Family Islands, expected to add close to 200 MW of new generation by 2027, including 97 MW of solar paired with battery storage.
Where containerized storage fits
The lesson from those projects is that island power works best when generation and storage sit close to the people who use them. That is the case for containerized systems: the electrical integration is done in a factory, the unit travels as ordinary freight, and it can be installed on a small footprint with a small crew.
Mystic Enterprises, a technology partner Oklahoma Ventures works with, has published a proposal for the Family Islands built on its Energy in a Box™ battery storage and solar units. As Mystic describes it, the program would place hybrid power nodes on individual islands and cays, each sized to serve a cluster of households together with essential services such as a clinic and a school, starting with communities that depend on diesel today and extending later to resorts, marinas and grid support on the larger islands. It is a proposal, not an operating project.
What it takes to deliver
The technology is the simpler part. An island energy program also has to settle who owns the assets, who buys the power and at what tariff, how the capital is raised, which sites are used and on what terms, and how equipment and crews reach islands with limited port facilities. Those questions involve the government, the utility, lenders and the communities themselves, and they have to be answered together.
That is the work Oklahoma Ventures does as a developer and integrator: defining the need with the government or owner, structuring the project and its path to financing, and coordinating technology partners, contractors and logistics so the owner deals with one accountable team.
Beyond the Bahamas
The same conditions exist across the Caribbean and in remote and coastal regions elsewhere: small, separated loads, imported fuel, and weather that tests every asset. What the Bahamas is showing is that distributed solar and storage can answer all three at once, provided the project around the equipment is structured properly.
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Sources: RMI, “How the Storm-Ravaged Bahamas Can Be a Model for Resilient Energy” (2022); Office of the Prime Minister of The Bahamas, press statement (February 2026). Mystic Enterprises is an independent company. The description of its proposal is based on information published by Mystic Enterprises. References to partners do not imply agency or joint venture unless stated in a written agreement.