BPL workers in Pinewood on Saturday.
Photo Gallery
BPL at work in Pinewood
Scenes of damaged power lines in Pinewood as BPL crews work in the area.
AREAS WITH POWER
THE areas restored with electricity supply as of Saturday evening according to the Bahamas Power & Light Company (BPL) are:
Portions of Garden Hills
Portions of Robinson Road
Portions of Beatrice Drive
Marlin Drive
Portions of Sandford Drive
Emery Road
Wulff Road to Collins Avenue
Portions of Blair
Portions of the Eastern Road
Portions of Mt. Vernon
Rosetta Street
Collins Avenue to Mackey/Madeira Street
Portions of Skyline Drive
Portions of Devonshire
Portions of Skyline Heights
West Bay Street - Melia to Sandals
Oakhill Road
Goodman's Bay to Sea View Drive
Portions of Old Fort Bay
Portions of Lyford Cay
Blake Road
Caves Point
Charlotteville
Marathon Mall
Industrial Park
Marina Village
Convention Centre
By KHRISNA VIRGIL
Deputy Chief Reporter
kvirgil@tribunemedia.net
BAHAMAS Power and Light (BPL) CEO Pamela Hill said the electricity provider has restored around 15 to 20 per cent of New Providence’s electricity supply as it juggles infrastructural damage and challenges at its Clifton Pier generation station in the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew.
However, according to Shevonn Cambridge, BPL’s Deputy General Manager of Engineering and Operations, it could take another three days before about 70 per cent of the capital’s power is restored.
During a tour of several of BPL’s problem areas - including Bain town and Fox Hill - and its Clifton station on Saturday, Craig Knowles, assistant engineer with responsibility for overhead construction, explained that BPL’s work has been hindered by several factors, which include first having to trim trees blown down by Matthew’s vicious winds before work to downed poles can begin and heavy traffic on the streets as motorists scramble around for essentials.
And while the jetty at Clifton Pier has been confirmed as severely damaged, BPL said that will in no way affect their fuel supply, noting that despite the jetty issue there are other ways to get fuel onto the island. To that end, BPL is working on an alternative plan, even though the company says it has sufficient fuel to ensure they are operational for a long time.
http://youtu.be/aADtcN9WeUcStill, Mrs Hill appealed for consumers to exercise patience as BPL takes the next several days to re-energise areas around the capital that have continuously been without power supply since the monster storm hit the island three days ago.
She said: “As far as the power and the restoration effort is of right now we’ve got about 15 to 20 per cent of the island restored and that restoration has been phased.
“Our first focus has been on the critical infrastructure. As you can imagine it is key that we have our hospitals with power and so we have been able to do that. Likewise key is the police station and other infrastructure. We have been working closely with the water authority in order to bring that online so that’s been our first order of business.
“From there it’s been to focus on our transmission to make sure that the generation is OK (at Clifton Pier). Same thing at Blue Hills.”
She continued: “Next thing that we are going to be doing is now that we have done just about all of our assessment in your neigbourhoods is to begin our restoration of the transmission line themselves and from there to move on to distribution.
“In terms of how long this will take first thing I want to urge is patience as well as support in helping to make sure that critical areas that our crews will need to access are kept clear.
“Second thing that I want to urge is if you see lines that are lying on the ground that seem to be causing some kind of impediment to your house or other area to please stay clear of that. We are in the process of testing and energising these lines and would not want anyone to be hurt as we move through that process.”
Meanwhile, Mr Cambridge suggested that BPL is doing well in terms of ensuring the needed megawatts of power supply are achieved. He said despite having to undertake a massive cleanup effort at the Clifton Pier plant, BPL has been able to secure 110 of the 177 megawatts capability from this facility.
“We have done a lot of the clean up and we’ve got our engines here prepped to start.,” he said. “We have roughly 177 megawatts installed here (at Clifton Pier) and out of that we have 110 that is ready to go right now. So we don’t foresee any generation challenges.
“Also at our other facility at Blue Hills by the end of the day we should have 100 megawatts there to go as well so we don’t anticipate any generation problems. But as you can see we have a lot of work a head of us in terms of cleaning up and really getting the place back to where it needs to be.
“It’s basically getting the power out of the power station and up town to our distribution centres. We have our primary substations and from there we distribute to the other small substations and then down to the consumer level so its a tiered approach. You go from the high end and you come down and that’s the approach that we are taking now.”
Asked to place a time frame on BPL’s work, Mr Cambridge said: “All the customers is a stretch, but I can tell you we probably will have about 75 to 80 per cent of the customers back within the next three days or so.
“It’s that last 20 per cent that’s really going to take an extra couple of days.”
Comments
ThisIsOurs 7 years, 6 months ago
Do the PM and DPM have power? Because I don't want to hear another person talk about magnificent leadership based on one press conference if they do. That's just more of the same, #MeFirstShip
lazybor 7 years, 6 months ago
well said
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observer2 7 years, 6 months ago
Some recommendations to BPL/BEC based on how Florida Power and Light operates.
Please insert detailed power outage and hurricane information on your website.
Hire 20 to 30 customer service agents to answer your phone. It is deplorable in this day and age for a monopoly never to answer the phone.
Hire more linesmen to fix the overhead lines faster. It is not acceptable that 48 hours after the hurricane that there are wires in the MAIN roads. I hardly see any BEC trucks on the road. In years gone by they were up and down the streets. Please pay your staff overtime so they will get the country up and running faster.
Bring in a contingent of linesmen from the US to get the ditribution up faster.
As a Bahamain I feel terrible that after paying $600 million in VAT, $100 million in webshop taxes, higher national insurance rates and higher business licence fees that we can't get the lights on faster.
John 7 years, 6 months ago
SO WHY Don't someone from government with some credibility go in the media and assure the Bahamian public that there is no fuel shortages and rather than gang bangin at the gas stations they need to carry their hip home. Rumors about that the fuel terminal at Clifton has been destroyed and once gas stations run out of what gas they have, there will be no more. The facts are the gas companies have reserve fuels and a contingency plan. So they will rig up something to get fuel off the tankers so there is no need to tow lines or panick Jed.!!
sheeprunner12 7 years, 6 months ago
BPL/BEC is the most critical essential service in our country ......... tread lightly .......... and do not forget that the BEC workers look forward to these crises to make their big overtime checks ...... and the same will happen in GB with the other private company
ThisIsOurs 7 years, 6 months ago
Water is probably the most critical service. If we didn't have water I think we'd truly see a crazy city. Power is critical for commerce but water is a must, couldn't have workers on an 8 hour shift with no water. That said I think BEC is doing the best they can, nobody keeps a staff to service 100,000 homes all at once or even all in the one day. What really irks me is the sickeningly upbeat propaganda about working on most heavily populated areas first and then telling us sandyport, west ridge and skyline drive have power. Seriously?
sheeprunner12 7 years, 6 months ago
Try having potable water running in the pipes or bottled in the plants in Nassau without electricity (not a gas dynamo) ....... except you are drinking well water like the folks in many Family Islands still ....... you don't get it
ThisIsOurs 7 years, 6 months ago
Good points, I'm talking about sanitation though. I don't even want to contemplate not having drinking water
ThisIsOurs 7 years, 6 months ago
"Hill said half of the company’s generation at the Blue Hills plant is on. She added, “At Clifton Pier, we have several units there but there is really four key work horses and two of those are on. So from an available generation capacity, we are in reasonably good shape.”"
This is what's annoying, their earlier statements spoke to how wonderfully they were doing and said that they had no generation problems, distribution was really the issue due to downed polls and trees. This statement from the guardian however clearly indicates that they're operating at half capacity. If that's the case say that and stop creating this rosy PR facade like you're campaigning for something. Ministry of Works failure.
This hurricane has clearly shown the massive failures of this government to date. Waiting for the announcement on all the pork that will be cut from the budget. Including dropping potters cay to the original 3 million dollars and cancelling any carnival subsidy.
Btw who puts Shane Givson in charge of another 100 million dollars? Who and what purpose would it serve? Kiss the money goodbye, the people in MICAL still waiting a year later
ThisIsOurs 7 years, 6 months ago
Over a billion dollars borrowed since this administration came to power, BEC should not be in the state it's in with all this turn of the century equipment, all of their artificially inflated contracts and skimming of the top practices are coming back to bite them just like the BEC bribe taker.
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