The Tribune

By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

ENERGY Minister JoBeth Coleby-Davis admitted yesterday that officials underestimated the severity of outages hitting residents and businesses so far this summer.

Speaking outside BPL’s Big Pond substation, Mrs Coleby-Davis said most of the recent outages stem from transmission and distribution upgrades that were supposed to be completed by the end of May, but were delayed by eight weeks after the murder of Pike employee Cody Castillo.

The delay, she said, forced BPL and Bahamas Grid Company to continue critical infrastructure work during a period of extreme heat, leaving parts of the grid strained while some circuits are taken offline for upgrades.

“We didn't expect it to be as bad,” she said.

“As I stated, the heat that we're experiencing in these months are normally in August, September, which means this work would have been finished. Sometimes we can't tell.

“One of the challenges that we've experienced over the past few weeks is the inconvenience of the outages at different times in different areas. In my budget communication, I explained that most of the outages are attributed to the upgrades, and one part of it is the fact that we are actually working in a time that was not a part of our project timeline. Our project timeline had us slated to be completed by the end of May. Unfortunately, the incident that occurred with Pike employee had us delayed by eight weeks, and because of that, we are now having to complete our upgrades in a time period that also have extreme heat. What we're seeing is some of our circuits has to be offline for the work, the upgrades to be completed.”

Mrs Coleby-Davis said many areas that would normally be supplied by two circuits are now operating on one, worsening the impact of high temperatures she said are typically felt in August and September but are now being experienced in May and June.

She said the project is 95 percent complete and officials expect “another few weeks” of work. She warned residents to expect “some inconveniences” over the next few weeks, but said the disruptions are part of building a more reliable power system that can better withstand future incidents.

Her comments came hours after the Ministry of Energy acknowledged in a statement the frustration and inconvenience residents and businesses have faced because of recent outages, particularly during the summer months.

The ministry said the system has enough power to meet demand, but ongoing transmission and distribution upgrades have forced portions of the grid to operate in an unusual configuration while critical infrastructure work continues.

“Some parts of the grid are currently being supplied by fewer circuits than usual, and during times of high demand and extreme heat, that reduced capacity puts extra strain on the system. It’s much like plugging too many appliances into a single circuit at home. The electricity is there, but the path delivering it is pushed beyond its normal limits,” the statement said.

Mrs Coleby-Davis gave a similar explanation, saying some outages result from system overloads rather than insufficient generation.

“When we have planned outages, we provide that detail early on, but then there are instances where, as I stated in my communications today to the public, where you would have a system overload,” she said. “That does not mean that we don't have generation capacity. What that means is the system has too much power coming at one time and then that causes it to, like you say in your home, the breaker tripped and what we have to do is to reduce the load to bring those areas back online, and we hope that it is continued to be minimized.”

Officials said significant progress has been made at the Fire Trail Road substation, where a new transformer has been installed and crews are completing cable installation and commissioning work expected to finish within four days. Once energised, the substation will operate with two transformers, increasing capacity, improving load sharing and strengthening reliability for customers in the area.

BPL Executive Chairman Christina Alston described the Big Pond substation as a “historic” and “world-class” facility and said the total package of work is worth about $130 million.

“You really don't need another substation like this. This is a monumental substation, as you can see, it takes up a lot of space. We will have several of the most important lines, the transmission lines that serve this particular island will come through this particular substation,” she said.

“What that does for us is, if there is an anomaly, lightning, a weather event, what will happen is the switches at this substation will open up and it will redirect power flow. When we talk about reliability, that is what you want for this system to do. So we're breaking up several transmission lines, so that we can redirect power flow to make sure that we keep the reliability on the island up and running.”