Robert Sands
By LYNAIRE MUNNINGS
Tribune Staff Reporter
lmunnings@tribunemedia.net
BAHA Mar Senior Vice-President Robert Sands has defended the practice of major businesses switching to backup generators when the electricity grid is strained, describing it as “good corporate citizenry” as New Providence continues to grapple with recurring power outages.
His position contrasts with that of the Bahamas Chamber of Commerce and Employers Confederation, which has warned that businesses are already being squeezed by high taxes, rising costs and regulatory burdens and has raised concerns about the additional expense and lost productivity caused by unreliable electricity.
BPL has blamed recent outages on a combination of equipment faults, underground cable failures, overloaded circuits and high electricity demand during the summer heat.
The utility has appealed to government agencies, large businesses and other customers to reduce their reliance on the grid as the system approaches capacity.
Mr Sands said Baha Mar and other major corporate entities have cooperated with Bahamas Power and Light for years by switching to standby generation when the grid comes under pressure.
“This is not a new occurrence, and I think that’s good corporate citizenry in a country where entities like Baha Mar do well and benefit from the country,” he said. “It’s only important that we support and give back to support the country through challenging times.”
His comments come after repeated power disruptions across New Providence, including in western communities near Baha Mar such as Old Fort Bay, West Winds, Sandyport and Turnberry.
Residents in Love Beach and other western communities have also reported extended outages, some lasting nearly 24 hours.
BPL Chief Operating Officer Anthony Christie has said several circuits were overloaded and transformers were operating at peak capacity, forcing the utility to balance loads and relieve pressure on equipment to prevent further damage.
Deputy Director of Energy Verron Darville has also said government agencies and large private customers with backup generation capacity were being asked to come off the grid during periods of peak demand so more electricity could remain available for residential customers and small businesses.
Mr Sands said operating Baha Mar on its generators has not disrupted the resort or impeded tourism growth, although he acknowledged that the outages have been an irritant.
“No impact at all,” he said. “It’s been an irritant,” he said yesterday on the sidelines of an event at the National Art Gallery.
Mr Sands said BPL should be given an opportunity to implement its plans and argued that reliability has improved significantly in recent months.
“We have to be patient,” he said. “These are some stumbling blocks, but by and large, we have been supportive of the progress and also the future of BPL. And even as I said, it has been an irritant, but it has not been a stumbling block to the growth of tourism in our country.”
He declined to disclose how much Baha Mar spends to operate on generator power, saying the resort pays the applicable diesel cost.
“The cost is the cost,” he said. “Whatever the diesel charge is, that’s the diesel charge. But I can assure you that BPL is fair to those corporate companies, etc and I will just leave it at that.”
The Chamber, however, has taken a more critical position on the effect of the electricity crisis on the private sector.
Chief executive officer Leo Rolle has said businesses are already contending with high taxes, rising costs and regulatory burdens, while repeated outages are resulting in lost productivity and additional operating expenses.
The Chamber has called on the Davis administration, BPL and Bahamas Grid to provide a clear plan and timeline for restoring reliable electricity.
It has also recommended expanded energy audits, grants to help smaller businesses adopt solar and energy-efficient equipment and greater use of duty-free concessions for high-efficiency equipment.
Comments
screwedbahamian 8 hours, 45 minutes ago
Are the large Hotels, Baha Mar, Atlantis and others being reimbursed by BPL for their cost of them having to used their own generators? and while we are at it, are they paying the same electricity rates as the residents?
JohnQ 8 hours, 39 minutes ago
When a basic service such as safe and reliable electricity becomes completely unreliable, what are individuals and businesses supposed to do ? Bahamian citizens have experienced this problem for many years, and we deserve better. Excuse after excuse, outage after outage, we have heard the same talking points over and over. Of course generators will be used to supplement and make up the energy supply whenever possible. With proper leadership and management all of the reliability problems in our nations capital could/should have been addressed decades ago.
Again, what are we supposed to do? Wake up citizens !!
Sickened 8 hours, 13 minutes ago
According to the BCC - we are supposed to pray. Apparently it has worked in the past LOL
empathy 5 hours, 58 minutes ago
BPL, Bahamas Grid etc have ‘one job’, to provide dependable, stable and consistent electricity to its customers!
Sands can ‘brown-nose’ these government & one-sided political entities all he wants, however BPL and the government has consistently NOT kept up with the needs of its customers, especially the expanding businesses like Bahamar and the ever expanding residential customers in the western part of the island! In fact over the past decades government policies through BPL has discouraged private electrical generation, both at the community level in many family island communities and individually when they have intermittently attempt to put the breaks on solar. Now some at BPL are taking aim at the EV retailers.
Is BPL Corporate suggesting they have been unaware of the expanding EV market, commercial and residential ‘customer load’? Maybe they have changed over too many times? Maybe they are too incompetent for their present positions? There are many other thoughts that could be expressed here, but they all point to successive political interference, nepotism and greed!
We can’t use any equipment or appliances that are energy efficient unless we’re willing to risk BPL ‘frying’ them repeatedly, a conundrum that leads to using less efficient ones and even more electricity usage potentially overloading our electrical grid. Even the modern generators are a problem for BPL whose surges damage their sensitive ATS systems. Of course any electrical damage BPL induces is virtually never paid back.
Now we sit at the precipice of an economic disaster where we’re being forced to choose between energy that’s clean, efficient and green or to continue the regressive fall to wastage and pollution…
If government is serious they’re silence after BPL’s statements, then they would encourage customers to link their clean energy projects into our power grids, not simply encourage businesses and wealthier residents to go it alone with these individual responses. Additionally someone needs to develop and articulate a PLAN to get us to developed country standards in the shortest possible timeline.
We’re waiting Mr. Davis?
ted4bz 5 hours, 33 minutes ago
He's not saying what he's trying to say.
bahamianson 3 hours, 31 minutes ago
He is doing PR for the PLP, no more, no less. If the FNM were in power, the tone would be different.
Seaman 3 hours, 18 minutes ago
See how his lips are fixed......we are in for a rude awakening. It's persons like him that don't give a f<>k about reality. He's not hurting. Stupidity seems to be the norm.
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