The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

TRIBUNE Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

BAHAMIANS must not accept power outages as the new normal, a former Abaco Chamber of Commerce president demanded yesterday, as she called on Bahamas Power & Light (BPL) to provide customers with “an automatic credit” for the hours they endure without energy.

Daphne DeGregory-Miaoulis, also proprietor of Abaco Neem, told Tribune Business that companies and households must shake off their “complacency” and not grow accustomed to accepting BPL’s inconsistent service as part of regular daily life otherwise the state-owned utility monopoly’s poor performance “wins”.

Speaking out amid ongoing electricity supply issues on New Providence, Abaco and multiple other Family Islands, she blasted of BPL: “At the very least they should give you a credit to your account for the hours they have not provided you with electricity. That should be the very least they should do, and the first thing they should do.

“How can they charge you for something they have not provided? Anyone else in any kind of business would be forced to give you a credit. But do we hear anyone making noise about that? That’s the heart of the answer. If we say ‘well, this is the new life’, they get away with it. They win.

“It’s a normal part of daily life now. Are we going to have power all day or not have power all day? I was speaking to a lady who does deliveries for me in Nassau, and she was complaining power was off recently for four hours one night,” Mrs DeGregory-Miaoulis added.

“Who’s responsible for this mess? We’re in the worst heat ever, and the cost of doing business, and people are going out of business and are not able to function in this heat. It’s really quite frightening. I don’t think anyone thinks it’s going to get better any time soon. It’s really pathetic.”

Calling on BPL’s 100,000 customers across The Bahamas to shake off their lethargy, and stop being so docile and passive, Mrs DeGregory-Miaoulis added: “We cannot be so complacent. Otherwise it means we’ll tolerate anything. There should be an automatic credit for the hours of service not provided.

“Let’s also.. the loss of food products due to spoilage from the power being out. We should drop them at BPL’s door. Definitely, at the very least, they should give an automatic credit no questions asked. We shouldn’t have to ask for it. They should automatically provide it.”

Power outages and blackouts have spread from the Family Islands to New Providence this summer. The Supreme Court complex was forced to shut for a day last month after its generators overheated and broke down due to continual use amid outages that impacted downtown Nassau and Bay Street - the heart of the city - which also forced multiple businesses to close. ZNS’ generator suffered a similar breakdown.

Those outages followed a series of New Providence-wide blackouts and continual localised area outages - especially in the island’s west, where BPL’s distribution grid was unable to supply sufficient power to meet the increased demand driven by growth and new customers.

Mrs DeGregory-Miaoulis, meanwhile, told Tribune Business that BPL customers “have to go through ridiculous hoops to prove” electrical equipment was damaged or fried by power dips and surges plus full outages.

“It’s very sad the situation we are in with very little hope of it getting better,” the ex-Abaco Chamber president told this newspaper. “We’re still having power issues here in Abaco. There’s all this talk of solar and LNG (liquefied natural gas), and the Prime Minister was here to see the new EA Energy plant. Everything is coming, coming but still, in the meantime, we are not getting the service and things are not improving.

“It’s still more talk. Don’t tell me; show me. We are at that point. They [BPL] are not doing anything. They are not compensating people who are losing valuable equipment. People are losing their businesses.”

Paul Maynard, the former Bahamas Electrical Workers Union (BEWU) president, recently told Tribune Business that successive administrations have “kicked the can down the road” for at least a decade on much-needed New Providence electricity grid upgrades and improvements to the point where “the road has run out”.

He affirmed that New Providence’s transmission and distribution network has failed to keep pace with the island’s growth and development, with the last major grid upgrade completed almost 30 years ago, leaving it unable to meet ever-increasing consumer demand from businesses and households as new customers are added.

As a result, Mr Maynard said much of the electrical equipment in sub-stations at the distribution level is “old and obsolete” to the point where it has reached “a real critical stage” of end-of-life. He added that BPL staff “risk their lives every day touching this stuff”, and said that - while the necessary improvements to the New Providence electricity grid will be made - these will take time to execute and not be felt before summer 2027 at the earliest.

BPL executives have confirmed that New Providence has sufficient available generation to meet peak load summer demand, and Mr Maynard yesterday agreed that the island’s recent woes have stemmed from a lack of distribution system capacity. This has created structural network bottlenecks, where not enough power is able to reach end users to meet heightened demand, resulting in critical system components becoming overloaded and failing.

The former union president suggested that New Providence’s energy grid has received insufficient attention when compared to BPL’s generation capacity. Issues with the latter were responsible for frequent outages and load shedding under the Minnis administration in 2018, which it sought to resolve with a $90m investment in six Wartsila engines, but the latest energy woes stem from transmission and distribution (T&D) deficiencies.

“It has been going on for over 16 years,” Mr Maynard said of the need for urgent electricity grid upgrades. “They kept kicking the can down the road. The road has run out. The can cannot be kicked any more….. It is what it is. I’m sure they are make some adjustments, do what they have to do and whatever has to be done.”

Well-placed Tribune Business sources have questioned whether BPL has conducted sufficient summer preparation and maintenance, especially on the transmission and distribution network. They also suggested that Bahamas Grid Company and its contractor, Pike Electrical, had in their $130m “foundational upgrades” focused largely on the transmission side and left distribution untouched at the neighbourhood level where much of the recent woes occurred.

Feeding into this, and compounding the challenges, are two unresolved problems related to the grid’s transition from BPL’s to Bahamas Grid Company’s control. The transfer of grid assets has yet to be completed, with these placed “in escrow”, leaving them in legal limbo or a ‘no man’s land’ of uncertainty. As a result, it is unclear whether BPL or Bahamas Grid Company has responsibility for these assets, the maintenance and repair, and which set of workers can handle them.

In addition, BPL’s 120 New Providence-based transmission and distribution workers have largely declined to switch to Bahamas Grid Company, fearing they would lose their union benefits, pension and years of service if they do so. As a result, Bahamas Grid Company has lacked key knowledge for its grid upgrades, since the location of key electrical equipment has not been documented but, instead, rests in the mind and memories of these workers.