The Tribune

By AVA TURNQUEST

Tribune Chief Reporter

aturnquest@tribunemedia.net

LOAD SHEDDING will continue this week in New Providence as beleaguered Bahamas Power and Light attempts to get more assets online, according to Executive Director Patrick Rollins.

Still, Mr Rollins maintained the company’s position that the country was not in the midst of an energy crisis.

“Crisis mode is when there is no improvements in sight,” Mr Rollins said.

“We have to get a couple of assets on this week to significantly minimise the amount of load shedding the company will have to do.”

Over the weekend, consumers across the capital experienced rolling outages in two to three hour blocks and a sustained outage in western New Providence of more than seven hours yesterday.

According to BPL, a main transformer for western New Providence tripped during a storm on Sunday morning.

“Initial call came in to BPL at 8.23am,” read an update posted to the power company’s Facebook page.

“As a result, crews were dispatched to the area and were able to restore service around 4pm. However, due to a blown overhead fuse, a small number of customers in the Venetian West area are experiencing low power conditions,” the Facebook update read. “An overhead team is expected to be onsite within 15 minutes to remedy the problem. Updates will continue as necessary,” read the update, which was posted at 6.30pm.

BPL Abaco also reported an Island wide outage at 4am that was restored 6.30am yesterday.

• OFFICIALS at Bahamas Power and Light have confirmed that a police report was filed over the illegal dumping that reportedly caused an island-wide blackout last week.

An official confirmed the police report was filed at the Western Police Station by a security guard.

The dumping occurred within close proximity of a transmission pole, which caused volt lines to clash into each other. It led to a major fault on the transmission network on Tuesday, according to Works Minister Desmond Bannister. He told Parliament on Wednesday the incident had nothing to with BPL nor its historic generation and transmission issues. The incident could have very easily resulted in the illegal dumper being tragically “fried” Mr Bannister said, had he gone any closer to the electricity pole.

BPL has been grappling with generation issues this summer and began load shedding on June 19. Officials have said the situation will not likely improve until this fall.