The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter​

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net​

Bahamas Power & Light (BPL) has been forced to "salvage parts" for its aged generation fleet, its chief executive has revealed, adding that preventative maintenance has been almost impossible to perform.

Whitney Heastie, speaking to the Rotary Club of East Nassau, said: "The generating fleet is very old. One of the machines we are tying to restore is a 1960 vintage machine. It's been very reliable, but it has failed in a way we didn't expect it to fail.

"The fleet we are dealing with is so old we literally have had to try and salvage parts. That is the truth. In some cases some of the agreements we have entered into makes it almost impossible to buy parts from someone other than the original engine manufacturer.

"It makes it extremely difficult to keep anything running when you have a single source of supply of critical parts. We have an aging fleet, and parts are very difficult to get or are no longer manufactured because what we have done in New Providence is nothing more than bring in rental generation and run the assets we have."​

Paul Maynard, the Bahamas Electrical Union Workers Union's (BEWU) president, and others have challenged assertions by BPL's present Board and management that some of the state-owned utility's assets are up to 60 years-old.

Tribune Business has seen a purported list of BPL's existing New Providence generation units, including those both in and out of service, which shows that the oldest date back to 1982 - some 37 years ago.

Mr Heastie, meanwhile, added: "Preventative maintenance has been very tough. To shut down these machines when you require them is almost next to impossible to do. We're not even talking preventative maintenance, which is another layer of maintenance this company hasn't seen.

"Most of the things we are experiencing today is because of a lack of redundancy in our system to be able to take machines out of service when needed in order to address the most basic issues on those critical assets."

Mr Heastie said the majority of BPL's generation assets are diesel engines, and the expense of burning higher-cost diesel is felt by the consumer.​ "The greatest portion of the bill you pay is not the tariff but the fuel charge," he added.

Mr Heastie said BPL had anticipated having 280 Mega Watts (MW) of generation capacity to meet the 250 MW peak summer demand. Currently, the company has 105 MW of rental generation from Aggreko, 35 MW at its Clifton Pier power plant, and 70 MW from the Blue Hills Power station due to the failure of other generation units on New Providence.

"That is 40 MW short of what is required to meet our current demands," said Mr Heastie.