The Tribune

By AVA TURNQUEST

Tribune Staff Reporter

aturnquest@tribunemedia.net

RESIDENTS suffered an island-wide blackout after a tractor working on the New Providence Gateway Project hit a transmission line yesterday.

Electricity was fully restored to New Providence and Paradise Island around midday, according to Bahamas Electricity Corporation, which said it was the first island wide outage in nearly three years.

"The outage was caused by a system fault which occurred when a tractor, working on the New Providence Gateway Project hit a 132,000 volts overhead transmission line on John F. Kennedy drive," said BEC.

"The Corporation emphasizes that the outage which occurred on Sunday was the fault of a private party working on the gateway project. BEC officials would also like to emphasize that this outage was unusual as this was the first island wide outage in New Providence/ Paradise Island in almost three years."

The blackout has heightened summer load shedding fears among some residents; however, last night BEC chairman Michael Moss said the corporation had sufficient resources to take on electricity needs during the hotter months.

"In the classical sense, load shedding means we don't have enough equipment to meet requirements of customers," said Mr Moss.

"We have more than ample equipment to meet the need. I'm very confident we will have no load shedding in that context."

He added: "When a unit trips, particularly our larger unit, it invariably results in a power disruption until we bring on another unit, some people call that load shedding but I wouldn't agree."

Mr Moss said there was also a second smaller outage on the island following the blackout due to a tripped generator.

BEC said: "The Corporation apologizes for any inconvenience caused by Sunday's outage and

reiterates its commitment to ensuring that all of its customers are provided with a safe and reliable source of electricity."