The Tribune

By LEANDRA ROLLE

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

BAHAMAS Power and Light is currently in the process of getting "rid" of its Aggreko units, Minister of Works Desmond Bannister said days after a fire occurred at one of the company's plants.

"BPL has a number of rental units called Aggreko units to what everybody is aware of, they have been very expensive, and BPL is in the process of getting rid of them as we get generation in," he told reporters outside Cabinet yesterday.

"One of those units had a fire in it. It was contained and it had absolutely no affect on power generation in the Bahamas and no affect on any community at all in relation to power and as I indicated previously, we're getting rid of those units."

"So, they're being phased out."

His comments came days after BPL officials confirmed that a fire, involving the Aggreko unit, occurred at its Blue Hill Station plant.

In a press statement released last weekend, BPL noted that the incident did not pose a "significant threat" to its generation assets nor had it caused customers on the island to be affected.

"Only a single unit was involved in the fire and the incident had no effect on the load to the grid, therefore no customers were affected," the power provider said in a statement released on Saturday.

"The unit was a part of a bank of 25mw of rental units maintained and operated by Aggreko personnel, and the fire was quickly brought under control and then extinguished."

This is not the first time that there has been a fire at the power provider's Blue Hill location.

The power provider has previously said it intends to end its reliance on rental generations by the Fall of 2021 in a move that would save long-suffering consumers $2m-plus per month.

Asked yesterday if BPL officials are seeking to take any precautions to avoid future fires, the minister replied: "These are things that happen fairly regularly at these kinds of sites when you have these little rental generation things and so the best thing we could do is prepare and BPL (will) continue their normal maintenance checks."

Speaking to reporters, the works minister also gave an update on the new bridge causeway at Fishing Hole Road in Grand Bahama, noting that officials are expecting repairs to be completed within the next "two months."

"The causeway was damaged (during Hurricane Dorian) and as a result of the damage of the causeway, the asphalt on the causeway was damaged," he told reporters.

"What the government has done now is approved a little over a million dollars to take that asphalt off, put concrete on there.

"That work, the concrete and the materials, etc, has been ordered by the contractor and we anticipate that in the next two months we are going to have that causeway finished so that people could utilise it on a regular basis."

The new bridge causeway, which runs between Hawksbill Creek, was constructed at a cost of $6.5m in response to many years of ongoing flooding at Fishing Hole Road, especially during hurricanes and severe weather conditions.

While noting that officials are anticipating for repairs to the causeway to be completed soon, Mr Bannister said the government would have preferred building a bridge to better rectify the issue.

"Fishing Hole Road is always, in my mind, that area has always been an environmental nightmare because of the things that have been allowed to happen and because of the development that has happened in there, the people in Queen's Cove and other communities in Grand Bahama has continually been flooded," he said.

"The intention of this government would have been to have a bridge there rather than a causeway. That causeway was built under another administration. They started it; we're finishing it. It's like the causeway in Abaco. Ya'll saw what happened to that in the storm. It was our intention in little Abaco to build a bridge. As the minister of public works, I'm going to build a new bridge in Abaco."