BEC confirms load shedding will continue across Nassau

As of Thursday, August 21, 2014

By SANCHESKA BROWN

Tribune Staff Reporter

sbrown@tribunemedia.net

THOUSANDS of customers can expect further disruption in power supply as the Bahamas Electricity Corporation continues load-shedding until it is able to rectify serious problems at both of its New Providence plants, according to Deputy General Manager of BEC Shavon Cambridge.

Speaking with The Tribune, Mr Cambridge confirmed that the corporation continued to load shed yesterday after two engines, one at Clifton and one at Blue Hills, tripped off-line around 4pm.

As a result, eastern, southern and parts of western New Providence were without power for a little over three hours.

In total, three BEC engines were off-line, when The Tribune went to press, including the large 30 mega watt engine at Clifton Pier. Mr Cambridge said a specialist from Florida arrived in Nassau yesterday to replace the computer in that engine that was destroyed as a result of a lighting strike on Tuesday.

However, he said there is still no certainty that the load shedding will discontinue once that engine is brought on-line.

In the meantime, Mr Cambridge said BEC is disconnecting power to commercial buildings during peak hours to ensure residential customers stay connected.

“We implemented, what we hope to be, a short-term load-shedding measure so it will rotate with customers. No one will be off for more than two hours,” Mr Cambridge said.

“I don’t know the extent of the shortage but once we get the two units back we should be able to provide electricity to the bulk of our customers. Meanwhile, large commercial buildings that are unoccupied overnight like (Department of) Customs and other big facilitates, we will turn them off so we do not inconvenience our residential customers. Most of these buildings have generators anyway.

“The large unit at Clifton has been off from Tuesday and won’t be back on until hopefully Thursday. A specialist has arrived from Florida to replace the CPU that got damaged in the lighting storm. With that back up, a lot of the load-shedding will be stopped, but I cannot say we will be out of load-shedding territory.”

Meanwhile, BEC customers in Abaco also continue to experience long periods of supply interruption after repeated failures of the Wilson City Power Station as well as several “copper thefts”.

In a statement BEC acknowledged the challenges in Abaco and said they are making their “best effort” to ensure supply is completely restored.

“The Wilson City Power Station continues to experience some ‘growing pains’ that have caused periods of supply interruption for Abaco residents,” BEC said yesterday. “While most of these issues have been resolved, at present, challenges associated with a back up battery system at the plant have been responsible for recent outages. BEC has sourced technical expertise from external consultants who are presently assisting in resolving these issues.

“In addition to this, the corporation has experienced challenges on its transmission and distribution network due to the impact of lightning. Despite a considerable financial investment to protect its equipment, the continued theft of copper has left BEC’s system vulnerable to lightning strikes which have also led to further outages.”

These latest round of outages come several weeks after New Providence was plunged into darkness for nearly 12 hours.

During recent weeks, there also have been sporadic outages in the capital and the Family Islands that BEC blamed on lightning strikes, copper theft and engine failures.

digimagination 10 years, 4 months ago

This farce is fast becoming worse than the worst joke you've ever heard!

ThisIsOurs 10 years, 4 months ago

Stop pretending, you guys been load shedding for over a month now. "Off for more than two hours" is that per day or within a three hour period?

Regardless 10 years, 4 months ago

Maybe time government introduces finance assistance for residences to put in solar and/or generators in residences to reduce their reliance on BEC. Obviously they are not up to the task. God help us when Bahamar comes on line!

Greentea 10 years, 4 months ago

after all of these years BEC still has to go to miami for personnel to fix their equipment? they haven't trained ANY of their employees in this area- not one? suck teeth.

sansoucireader 10 years, 4 months ago

Seems like the specialist from Florida bad to bring the part in with him. I want to know if there are any plans for a special fine & jail time penalty for these cooper wire thieves. Harsh sentencing, like life imprisonment or hanging. Should be treasonous to cause damage to the electrical company that is supposed to serve us.

ThisIsOurs 10 years, 4 months ago

I agree. Copper thieves are terrorists. Let the word out for a month, anyone caught after that, dog eat your lunch

Well_mudda_take_sic 10 years, 4 months ago

And while Bahamians are sweating out one of the hottest summers ever with increasingly frequent power outages, our PM (Christie) is hobnobbing with organized crime figures in lavish air conditioned Las Vegas hotels. The very young and very old in our country are dying from heat exhaustion while Christie and known hoods Obie and Baltron party with wealthy members of organized crime in sin city Vegas. What a joke!

solejordan 10 years, 4 months ago

this is a bunch of foolishness. whose going to pay for my ruined appliances? 40+ years and we cant keep the lights on fully, just excuse after dumb excuse

Hotelier 10 years, 4 months ago

So not only do businesses pay higher rates for electricity they are the first to go when BEC can't generate enough to go around. as if I needed any more proof that our government is not exactly commerce friendly. It was enough when residential customers were offered discounts to get back on..........where is my reward for always paying my bills?

asiseeit 10 years, 4 months ago

I love that they have to bring in a tech to fix the thing, no training, no for thought, no vision. Next time F. Mitchell makes noise about work permits to a company they should throw this in his face. How long have we had electricity in this country and they have not figured it out yet, utter and complete failures on so many levels. Any person on the mangement team and any politician that has been involved with BEC should be sent to the DUNCE corner and publicly beg forgiveness for their complete failure. Also pay the back treasury the money we paid you as you did not do your job! What a bunch of losers!

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