The Tribune

By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

ELEUTHERA residents should expect scheduled power outages in the coming days as Bahamas Power and Light (BPL) upgrades the island’s transmission and distribution network.

BPL chairperson Christina Alston said the company is working to improve infrastructure that has been experiencing issues, with a 90-day timeline set to complete the upgrades before the peak of summer.

“This has been a really collaborative effort for BPL,” she said yesterday. “The reason the 90 days is so very critical is we wanted to make sure we got this done before hot weather.”

Corporate communications manager Arnette Ingraham said extensive work will be done on the ground to ensure the island’s power system can handle summer demand.

“Customers will see the power going off in the next couple of days, but we will provide a schedule in advance with at least 48 hours’ notice,” she said.

She said the planned outages are necessary to carry out essential upgrades, reducing the risk of the frequent and prolonged unplanned outages Eleuthera has experienced in the past.

Ms Ingraham added that BPL will take advantage of this low-load period to conduct maintenance across the island, including work on transmission, distribution, and generation assets.

The island has been affected by widespread power outages in recent months.

Ms Alston said an engineering team, including a grid modernisation expert, has been on the ground since early January as part of efforts to bring Eleuthera’s infrastructure up to the necessary reliability standards.