The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas Electricity Corporation (BEC) anticipates receiving $2.5-$3 million in monthly payments from the Baha Mar development once it fully opens, it executive chairman has disclosed.

Leslie Miller, who gave a presentation to the Rotary Club of East Nassau on Friday, said: “Baha Mar is going to take up 16 Mega Watts (MW) of power at full speed. Right now, they’re taking up about six to eight MW.

“We’ll be ready for Baha Mar during the summer. Clifton is now in pretty decent shape and Blue Hills is back up to scratch.”

He added: “We expect that the contribution from Baha Mar would be anywhere between $2.5 million to $3 million per month on their bill, and we look forward to it because we need the money. And we want to provide them with the best service at the cheapest price. So we look forward to Baha Mar coming on stream.”

Mr Miller said BEC had reached an agreement with Aggreko, the UK-based temporary power generation company, to provide it with an additional 40 MW of power.

“It’s going to cost us right under $8 million for a six-month period,” Mr Miller confirmed.

“Actually, it’s 30 weeks that we’ve rented that equipment for. We may go further.Now, because of the amount of fuel that those generators use, it is much less than what we use at Blue Hills, so we’ll end up with a net savings of about $4.5 million, and we intend to ask the Government to let us recoup our cost for the generators out of that, so that we don’t have to pay anything.

“The Bahamian people are still going to get a reduction in their bill. We’re asking the Government this time to let us bypass passing all of the savings on to the consumer, and enable us to pay for those engines that we are leasing. So it’s probably going to be two-thirds for BEC and a third for the consumer. So even with the costs we’ll be paying, we’ll be saving even more money instead of using Blue Hills, and that’s what we intend to do,” said Mr Miller.

“Those savings will come probably in the July bill, because it takes time to tie into the grid. By the first week in May, we want to have those engines here into the grid.”