The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

BAHAMAS Power & Light (BPL) yesterday blamed outside “interference” for an hours-long power outage that impacted much of New Providence and cost many businesses valuable sales and income

Brent Burrows, CBS Bahamas (Commonwealth Building Supplies) chief, told Tribune Business that his decision to work from home could not have been worse as his electricity supply was interrupted for almost half the day. “I’m working from home today and I’ve been severely affected because I can’t do anything,” he said.

“This is 2022 and it’s incredible that we can’t keep the lights on. This is just incredible. You would think that at this time in our country’s development that we can have dependable power.”

CBS’ physical store in Carmichael Road’s Southwest Plaza, in common with many companies, retail and office complexes, has long employed back-up generators that automatically kick-in due to the constant interruptions in BPL’s electricity supply that were a regular occurrence prior to the purchase and installation of new generation capacity at the Clifton Pier power plant under the former administration.

Supplemented by rental generation, the daily widespread blackouts and load sheddings endured during the summers of 2018 and 2019 have reduced in both frequency and duration since. Yesterday’s outage, which lasted for several hours, was among the longest in recent months, and all businesses without back-up generator supply will have been impacted through loss of sales and customers as a result.

The partial island-wide black out affecting multiple corridors and areas in New Providence. BPL’s Whats App Group reported that Market Street North to Bay Street; Fort Charlotte; Blue Hill Road North and south of Soldier Road; Ernest Street; East Street South; Collins Avenue; Wulff Road; eastern New Providence in its entirety; and Paradise Island east were all without power for at least two full hours.

A BPL spokesperson, in response to Tribune Business inquiries, said the outages resulted from “third party interference where a truck ran into a cable line, which caused the line to bounce and ricochet against the power lines, which resulted in a fire on the line”. This caused BPL to “initiate a protective system shutdown”, resulting in yesterday’s partial blackout.

Andrew Higgs, general manager of WHIM Automotive, said: “On this island if you don’t have a generator then you had better get one. Some people may have generators but they may not keep them serviced. There is no sense in having them if you are not going to service them.”

“When we see our generator hit a quarter of a tank of gasoline, we will it back up. But it’s only a couple of hundred dollars to fill it back up and then a couple of hundred for maintenance every month. If you don’t have a generator that means you would get zero in sales, so you have to make that investment.”

While keeping a generator properly maintained adds up in expenses, Mr Higgs said he “not sold on” renewable energy just yet. “They villainised solar earlier because everybody that wanted solar, they wouldn’t let you get it. But now they’re trying to push these various things, but they aren’t going to let everyone get into it unless they figure out how they are going to make some money out of it,” he added.

“We looked at solar power here. You’re looking at six figures to solarise the building, but when are you going to realise a return on that if we’re paying a couple of thousand per month from BPL and you have to have batteries changed and serviced? Solar panels don’t last forever.”

Vasco Bastian, owner/ operator of Esso East Street and Soldier Road, added: “We went off for a couple of minutes, but we got right back on when our generator kicked in. So we really weren’t affected in any way.”

BPL crews were dispatched and, by noon yesterday, “most of the areas were restored” with just a few pockets left to be addressed.