The Tribune

By SANCHESKA BROWN

Tribune Staff Reporter

sbrown@tribunemedia.net

THE Bahamas Electricity Corporation will continue load shedding across New Providence indefinitely, according to the company’s Executive Chairman Leslie Miller.

Mr Miller told The Tribune four engines, three at Clifton Pier and one at Blue Hills, failed yesterday morning causing a generation shortage of between 40 to 50 megawatts.

Mr Miller said the corporation had brought in three specialists from Fort Lauderdale to assess the problems and he has “no idea” when the load shedding will end.

In the meantime, he said, the corporation will continue to load shed across the capital, with businesses being asked to run their generators to ensure homeowners stay connected.

“We are having major problems. We are short about 50 megawatts, which means the demand is not significantly higher than the supply. We have Paradise Island using their generators to help us and we flew some people in from Fort Lauderdale to look at two of the engines,” Mr Miller said.

“We are shutting down business places in the evenings to ensure that homeowners stay on. So we will be turning off banks, government buildings and corporations at night and load shed in the day with homeowners. So no homeowners are expected to be off in the evening – but you never know what could happen.

“When you fix one thing, another thing goes wrong. So until we get those engines up, the electricity will be up and down and unfortunately at this time I don’t know for how long. We need new engines. These people can play whatever games they want and sit in whatever meeting but the point is at this time we do not have the capacity to satisfy the demand and we are in big trouble. I apologise now in advance but homeowners should be fine in the evenings.”

BEC has been plagued with power outages for several months and Mr Miller said this is the “worst he has ever seen it.”

Last week, he said without a new power plant, which will cost about $200 million, the country will continue to be plagued by outages that will worsen when Baha Mar, the mega resort at Cable Beach, is added to the grid next year.

Yesterday, customers in eastern and southern New Providence complained of having their power disrupted from late Wednesday night into yesterday. Lightning and generator trips have been blamed for the frequent power cuts.

The latest major outage occurred last week and BEC said they were experiencing  “challenges on its generation network” .

That outage came after residents in four settlements on Andros were without electricity for nearly 15 and a half hours earlier this month.

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.”