The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas Power & Light chief executive officer was right on inadequate facilities for Wartsila generators at the Clifton Pier station, a Bahamian Contractors Association (BCA) trustee has said.

Debbie Deal told Tribune Business that it was “common knowledge” the facilities at the Clifton Pier station were inadequate for the Wartsila generators purchased by the previous administration.

Ms Deal, responding to comments by BPL CEO Shavon Cambridge that former BPL officials “may have cut some corners” in getting the power company’s Station A plant at Clifton Pier online, added “when they ordered them, they never prepared a new foundation. The station was there for a long time and the vibration had already done a lot of damage to it. The generators that were coming in were much heavier”.

The vibration made by the Wartsila generators could often be felt a quarter mile from the Clifton Pier station. She said: “The chillers and the wells they had for the cooling were only six inches and they were supposed to be at least ten inches for these new engines. They didn’t upgrade that so there isn’t enough water to chill the engines.”

Mr Cambridge said ‘the use of a singular auxiliary system and the reuse of the old, already compromised borehole cooling system at the original Station A caused an appreciable decline in outputs from the engines”.

In addition, it is claimed the Clifton Pier Station A is only capable of running two engines at the time, despite having seven available. This is something that concerns Ms Deal as she said none of the engines were put on the proper rubber mounts that would stop the vibration that takes them offline and this is why BPL can run no more than two engines at a time.

Ms Deal said previous BPL officials spoke about the Wartsila engines being tri-fuel, because the Shell North America arrangement was supposed to kick in and add liquefied natural gas (LNG) to the energy mix, only to now find out that the Wartsila engines are only dual fuel.

Not only are the Wartsila engines not ready to run LNG, they are as problematic as the ones they were supposed to replace and as power cuts are continuing on a daily basis, not able to power the island of New Providence. She said: “From the entire time since the engines were ordered they were talking about them being tri-fuel as Shell has been waiting in the wings to do something here since 2017 when they were awarded the LNG plant. They kept talking about doing that, but I can’t imagine that they would have ordered engines and they could not run tri-fuel. Why would they order them and still not give them a proper foundation and a way to chill them?”

She also said: “I don’t mind calling a spade and spade, because at the end of the day we are the ones that suffer. When one of these engines burn up due to lack of water, we are the ones that are going to be left without power.”