The Tribune

By NICO SCAVELLA

Tribune Staff Reporter

nscavella@tribunemedia.net

BAHAMAS Power and Light’s load shedding exercises continued throughout New Providence over the holiday weekend, with residents in various communities suffering three to five hour-long power cuts.

BPL, in multiple statements between Sunday and yesterday, said many areas throughout the island, from the Fort Charlotte area to South Beach experienced power cuts.

Residents in the Carmichael Road area in particular experienced five-hour long blackouts, as they and residents in portions of Fire Trail Road east and Cowpen Road east went offline due to “technical difficulties”.

Other customers in the areas surrounding Stew Fish Drive and Carmichael Road west experienced a temporary outage due to a “faulty transformer”. It is unclear how long that blackout lasted.

Various areas in the Yamacraw constituency, inclusive of Palm Cay, St Andrews Beach Estates, Port New Providence and Winton Meadows also experienced blackouts on Sunday.

Areas like Garden Hills #1; Yellow Elder; Blue Hill Road South; Pinewood Gardens; South Beach and the surrounding areas also went offline for approximately an hour and a half due to “technical difficulties”.

Yesterday, BPL said numerous locations in and/or near the Fort Charlotte community would experience some load shedding at 4:30pm for some three hours.

Over the weekend, numerous consumers took to BPL’s official Facebook page to express their frustration with the blackouts, which have been a common yet vexing occurrence this summer.

“This load shedding crap is getting way outta hand but yet we still have to be paying high bills for crappy service (sic),” one consumer wrote. “It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt due to these frequent power outages.”

Another person said: “BPL this is utter foolishness…excuses after excuses man…this is irritating and sickening. It’s like y’all have no care for the poor people who struggling to make ends meet. Pay their bill just to be kept in darkness.”

“Y’all so full of it…and still have the nerve to drive around disconnecting people. Worst power company ever!” another consumer ranted.

Meanwhile, another user questioned why BPL never included Lyford Cay in its disconnection notices, stating: “They off the grid aye (sic)?”

New Providence residents have suffered through almost daily load shedding since June 19. This despite BPL Chairman Donovan Moxey proclaiming earlier this year that officials did not expect load shedding this summer.

The load shedding exercises came as a result of problems experienced with its generating assets at the Blue Hills Power Station, the company said previously.

Due to increasing temperatures, customer demand on the network in New Providence spiked. The loss of generation coupled with the increase in demand resulted in a shortfall of generation and the need for load shedding, BPL said.

Company officials have said the situation may not improve until the fall.