By NICO SCAVELLA
NUMEROUS areas in New Providence were again without power for at least five hours following a fierce thunderstorm in western New Providence yesterday morning.
The Bahamas Electricity Corporation (BEC) confirmed in a press statement yesterday that “challenges on its generation network” due to “lightning activity” was the cause of the early morning power outages.
“The corporation explains that around 5 o’clock this morning, lightning activity caused the failure of several units at BEC’s Clifton Pier Power Station,” the statement read. “As a result, supply was lost to several areas on the island. Teams were able to return some generator units to service within minutes; however it is a gradual process as several other units remain offline.”
Yesterday, customers in western New Providence complained of having their power disrupted for four hours between 2am and 6am and then again between 8am and 9am.
Later that day there were also outages in eastern and southern New Providence with traffic lights on East Street South without power well after noon.
The press statement noted that the lightning may have affected “some individual areas” and that repair teams were “currently working to restore supply to (these) customers.”
“BEC apologises to customers impacted by the outage and explains that efforts are being made to obtain full restoration in the shortest possible time,” the statement read.
Yesterday’s power outages came after residents in four settlements on Andros were without electricity for nearly 15 and a half hours last week. Congo Town, Duncombe Corpus, Long Bay Cays and Drake’s Hill were without power from 9pm last Wednesday until 11am the next day when power was fully restored to the island.
BEC spokeswoman Arnette Ingraham told The Tribune recently that BEC is “working hard” to resolve their challenges and that the corporation is committed to minimising “the frequency of outages for customers in Nassau and the Family Islands.”
Comments
ThisIsOurs 10 years, 3 months ago
We need an independent commission on BEC. SOMETHING IS WRONG!!!!! Tired of lame excuses. And I eehn putting everything on Leslie, it takes more than one man to run a show.
We having stupid 9million dollar Carnival parade that nobody involved in the "planning" have a clue what they have to do next week or how much it gonna cost while the country on the verge of a collapse of our electrical grid???
asiseeit 10 years, 3 months ago
This is what happens when your country is run by corrupt people. Both governments and the civil service are to blame as are the Bahamian people. We allow this crap to continue, we do not demand better. If we were really serious about OUR country, Rawson Square would be packed with protesters. This country is in it's death throws and Bahamians just do not care and those that do are leaving. These so called leaders have destroyed a country in less than 50 years, the old Bay St. boys are laughing in their graves as they say, "told you so"! What a sad state of affair's, god help us if we get a hurricane.
Tommy77 10 years, 3 months ago
@asiseeit I agree.
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GQ 10 years, 3 months ago
No thunderstorms in Abaco last evening and a new one hundred and fifty million plant was off most of last afternoon and from around 7 p.m. Tuesday until 4 a.m. Wednesday. The PLP blasted the FNM about many things leading up to the 2012 election two of the prime items was Murdered Bahamians and inefficient BEC. Man these two items are now coming back to haunt them. Where is the POTCAKE?
asiseeit 10 years, 3 months ago
This country is a joke, a bad one at that. Power is out in my area now. I think this is the 4th. time this week. Have these people no shame? We are supposed to be a up to date and modern nation, not some jook jook backwater. The people in charge, all of them should be utterly ashamed of themselves and their low quality. You swine want more of my hard earned money yet you can not even give me a steady supply of electricity that you charge me an arm and a leg for in 2014? Stick your taxes where the sun does not shine, I am sick of you (useless government) stealing from me!
John 10 years, 3 months ago
If BEC needs to load shed then they should do it in an organized fashion and stop hiding behind excuses. With the power going off every other hour in some areas, some people are losing everything electrical in their homes. Business are suffering thru loss of sales and loss of producitivity and are also losing meat and produce. There have been several electrical fires over the past weeks and seversl buildings had their entire meter room burnt out.
Gladiator 10 years, 3 months ago
The Government is better off supplying every single house with it's own generator rather than spending millions of dollars failing to run a company with incompetent leadership and outdated equipment. Bunch of clowns in Government.
gangof4 10 years, 3 months ago
Our business is right off East Street and the current was off from early Tuesday morning (around 8:45am) until late that afternoon, coming back on just after 4pm!!! No work could be done for the day as computers, telephones, etc were down because of the blackout. The staff sat around "twiddling their thumbs" until around lunchtime and then we finally sent them home. LOL, maybe I can send my labour costs and other expenses for that day to BEC to be compensated for all the losses incurred to the business........yeah right!! Since then (and even before), at least once or twice a day the lights are going out, enough times now that we're going to have to invest in a generator or we might just end up going out of business. This year, BEC has been brutal.........and don't even get me started on BTC and the world's worst and absolute crappiest cell phone system!!
Why do we put up with this boloney.......???
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