BY NATARIO McKENZIE
Tribune Business Reporter
nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net
Power disruption issues and power surges continue to plague Harbour Island causing ‘major damage’ at the island’s resorts and threatening its tourism industry, although Tribune Business understands that some remedy may be imminent as Bahamas Power & Light seeks to replace existing equipment facilitating power to the island.
The island was plagued by power outages since last week, with repeated power surges causing major concerns for resort to operators and damaging equipment. Tribune Business understands that progress on rectifying the situation is underway with the replacement of existing generators expected to begin soon.
“I know that the team up here is definitely trying their best. They work around the clock. The problem is we are low down the totem pole. Unless they do a major infrastructure, nothing is going to improve. Spanish Wells does their own plant and I think the people in Spanish Wells would be very interested in doing Harbour Island but BEC is never going to give up this account, it’s too much revenue,” said one resort operator.
Bahamas Power & Light (BPL) chief executive Pam Hill met with a small group of Harbour Island tourism and business stakeholders late last month following an especially bad week for power outages and surges across Eleuthera. The island’s power supply woes were highlighted last year following a series of electricity plant fires in April, and another in June, during key holiday weekends such as US Memorial Day. The issue prompted a group of Harbour Island businesses to send a letter to the Ministry of Tourism highlighting their concerns.
Comments
DDK 7 years, 8 months ago
Constant power outages plague all of our Islands, perhaps with the exception of Grand Bahama. It is a disgraceful way of life, ignored by successive reigning political parties for decades, possibly because all of the elitists own generators and are not bothered. Now, to pour salt into the wound, we seem to be to throwing taxpayer money at foreigners supposedly to improve the situation. Guess what? Power outages are still the norm and the rates are still astronomically high. Fuel surcharge and VALUE Added Tax indeed. What value? Why change the corporation name? No power is no power. Lovely for our visitors as well.
Have any of these political brainiacs ever considerer the abundance of breeze and sunshine in the Bahamas?
John 7 years, 8 months ago
So you don't think if they rented generators to ease the load shedding in New Providence, they coulda' rent at least one additional generator for Harbor Island. Do you know that in three years Britain will be experiencing the same power shortages that we have here in new providence? The politicians are aware of the problem but many favor building nuclear plants to remedy the problem. The problem though is it will take 10 years minimum to construct these nuclear plants and hundreds of millions of dollars. So what does Britain do in the 7 years during the time the the power shortages start and the time the nuclear plants are completed. Here in the Bahamas the power shortfall can be easily fixed. BPL can embark on a project to solarize every street light in the Bahamas starting in New Providence. On 75-80% of the days these lights can generate enough electricity to power the streetlight all night and feed power back to the grid. So not only are you now reducing the load on the grid by removing the street lights but you are also increasing the capacity of the grid. Then you can move to providing solar power to buildings like schools and post offices and other government and public offices that operate during the daytime (9-5), with minimal backup for unusual circumstances.
themessenger 7 years, 8 months ago
Another armchair rocket scientist, of course, solar powered LED street lights , large PV panels, batteries and inverters are cheaper than candles that's why we all have them.
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