The Tribune

By SANCHESKA DORSETT

Tribune Staff Reporter

sdorsett@tribunemedia.net

MINISTER of Works Desmond Bannister said he has “serious concerns” with Bahamas Power and Light’s ability to “keep the lights on this summer,” telling The Tribune the lack of reliability may prevent the government from fulfilling all the necessary requirements in the Baha Mar heads of agreement.

He added that he is already “looking at new, alternative ways,” including solar, to produce energy.

The heads of agreement requires the government and BPL to “address reliable and consistent supply of electricity on the island of New Providence, which will include the ability to meet the requirements of the project.”

This involves the installation “of all supporting infrastructure necessary to support secure and dependable electricity supplies to the project, without the need for unusual load-shedding or other interruption in electricity supply to the project.”

This must be completed by December 31, 2017 and any failure by the government to resolve the energy problems by December 31, 2017, will be treated as “a force majeure” event.

If that occurs, then Chow Tai Fook Enterprises and its Baha Mar-owning affiliate will be released from performing their heads of agreement obligations for as long as it takes to remediate the problems.

Mr Bannister said while the agreement with Baha Mar is important, his first concern is with the Bahamian people.

“My first concern when it comes to reliability is the Bahamian people. The contract with Baha Mar is important and there is a concern because we want to live up to our end but Bahamians have to feel confident that we are able to keep the power on,” Mr Bannister said.

“The Bahamian people elected us and as a government we have to ensure that things happen and I am going to make sure that it happens. After that is done, I will look at other areas of concern.”

Mr Bannister said the government is “moving quickly” to resolve the constant blackouts.

“I am not at all convinced that BPL can keep the power on this summer. So I am moving quickly to see what we can do,” he said.

“As soon as a new board comes in we will be looking at new ways to produce energy. We are looking at solar, as a matter of fact I met with some solar people this morning (Thursday). The Bahamas cannot afford to have this type of unreliability. Since I came into office, Abaco has had issues with blackouts and the last two days the people in Inagua have been inconvenienced and it is unacceptable. We have to be able to produce and give the Bahamian people the type of service they expect.”

Last month, BPL expressed “confidence” in its readiness to take on the peak summer period with its higher power generation capability.

In a previous statement, BPL said while it expected the needed power generation this summer to peak at 255 megawatts, its current generation availability is over 345mw. This is 90mw higher than the demand expected this summer.

In addition, the electricity provider said transmission cables between Blue Hills Power Station and the Big Pond Sub-Station have been replaced and upgraded to improve the capacity and reliability of the transmission system.

Pointing to the period from June to September last year, in which BPL experienced challenges due to low generation availability and reliability, the company said it wanted to ensure Bahamians would not suffer from the same issues this summer.