An article by Diane Cardwell, The New York Times.

Several Caribbean nations committed on Thursday to start replacing diesel generators, the most common means of producing electricity on islands, with renewable sources like wind, solar or the earth’s heat.

The countries, which have already taken steps toward developing the new energy projects and include St. Lucia, Turks and Caicos and the British Virgin Islands, signed the pact at a multiday meeting organized by the Carbon War Room, a nonprofit organization that Richard Branson, the billionaire founder of the Virgin Group, established to fight climate change.

As part of the effort, Mr. Branson announced on Tuesday a deal with the independent power producer NRG Energy to install solar and wind power on Necker Island, a private enclave he owns, to cover about 80 percent of the power needs. Islands throughout the Caribbean have extremely high electricity costs, and the new renewable projects can help reduce them sharply, he said.

“What we hope to do is use Necker as a test island to show how it can be done,” he said in an interview. “The only way we’re going to win this war is by creative entrepreneurship,” to make the price of clean energy cheaper than that of energy from fossil fuels.

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