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BPL exec works to upgrade 'archaic' state of equipment

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Whitney Heastie

By Youri Kemp

THE chief executive of BPL, Whitney Heastie, said he was "stunned" by the state of equipment at the company in a new video released by the power supplier.

Mr Heastie promised that upgrades are coming as he warned about the state of long-standing disrepair of power generating facilities - with changes expected by next year.

In a video produced by BPL that aired on television last night and is on BPL's YouTube page, Mr Heastie said some of the systems in both the operations and maintenance sections BPL are "archaic".

He said some of the equipment still uses out-dated floppy disk drives. Mr Heastie said one of the control rooms at BPL was built in the 1970s and one of the machines shut down nine months ago was operating from that control room.

Mr Heastie said they are currently upgrading both facilities and management and procedural processes.

He said BPL is designing a centralised generation control so they won't have three stations operating in "silos" but will be operated from a central control centre to be online by next year.

BPL has been going through a year of severe power disruptions and load-shedding exercises. Chairman Dr Donovan Moxey said they are doing everything in their power to restore trust.

In an article published this week, Dr Moxey said: "This summer, customers of Bahamas Power and Light have yet again endured frustrating periods of load-shedding as generation capacity has failed to meet demand for electricity. Prime Minister, the Most Honorable Dr Hubert A Minnis, was correct - this was a crisis for families who could not cook meals, small business owners who could not complete transactions, and every Bahamian who had their daily life disrupted by these periods without power."

Dr Moxey also said: "Our generation fleet in some cases is almost 40 years old. From a practical standpoint, that means when parts are needed they can be difficult to procure or simply may no longer be available.

"Demand for electricity has grown dramatically in New Providence. Unfortunately, this growing demand was not matched by a parallel investment to increase generation capacity. This means that today, while our peak demand has now grown to about 250MW a day we only have the capacity to generate about 210MW of power each day. The 40MW shortfall in generation led to load shedding throughout the summer.

"The good news is that, despite a number of setbacks, BPL has returned the first of the two failed generators at Blue Hills Power Station to service, making up about half the 40MW shortfall. The second unit is under the inspection of a specialist even now, and we will continue to update the public on that unit's return to service.

The bad news is that even with both of these generators back online, we still have no excess capacity in the system. That means that if another one of the aging generators fails, load- shedding may need to resume."

Comments

Bahamianbychoice 5 years, 1 month ago

Please.. Mr. Heastie do not insult the intelligence of the Bahamian people. You have been around for awhile now and only since you resumed oversight of generation have their been multiple fires that have caused unprecedented load shedding that have caused this country to be termed "in a power crisis." Your arrogance is astonishing...and actually embarrassing for the country.

The MOU with Shell would have rectified this for the Bahamian people without any upfront cost but you and many of "your friends" find yourselves I am guessing jammed up in the cookie jar, hence the MOU was altered at huge costs to the taxpayers.

No on one is interested in listening to you or Dr. Moxey. Disgraceful. The leadership at BPL has lost all respect..so just stay quiet. You think persons are distracted with the hurricane challenges? I would suggest you recalibrate...in fact, the international community is watching even closer..you know like the IRS....smt!

The_Oracle 5 years, 1 month ago

Classic, total, complete failure with no solution or objective in sight. I have said there will be a catastrophic failure within a year, more than likely before that. But those in charge will not disturb the political quagmire that has created this fiasco. Heastie contributes more bad management brought over from GBPC. URCA is silent and powerless, preferring to pander to BEC/BPL influence. This will not end well for the Bahamas.

proudloudandfnm 5 years, 1 month ago

GBPC does not have management issues, our power is consistent, clean and the cheapest in the country.

Heastie most definitely cannot be blamed for BPL today, that blame lies on the PLP and the FNM (mostly the PLP) for ignoring the needs of BEC for decades and for selling jobs for votes. And you Nassau people for sitting on your assess and allowing past administrations to ignore the situation for decades. I don't live in Nassau and I saw this coming. I've been saying for years now that if I lived in Nassau I'd pitch a tent on the PM's lawn until he did something about BEC....

This is 100% Nassau politician's fault and Nassau people's fault. You guys have reaped exactly what you are now sowing....

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