NASSAU, BAHAMAS — Bahamas Power & Light ’s (BPL) Chief Executive Shevonn Cambridge yesterday acknowledged that the auxiliary systems needed to support the efficient utilization of the Wärtsilä engines purchased for $95 million back in 2019 are in need of an upgrade, with the power company currently spending a “sizeable” sum on rental generation supply.
Cambridge while speaking at a press briefing at the Office of the Prime Minister yesterday stated: “We got new engines but those are being supported by older auxiliaries. Just like everything else you are about as strong as your weakest link and now the plan is to try and upgrade the auxiliaries to support those engines. We have a plan that will result in the change out of some of those things.
“Right now we have a cooling system for the old plant and we need to replace it and put in a more efficient cooling system to better utilize those engines. It’s not in this year’s budget but it is in our plans going forward in terms of prioritization,” Cambridge said.
While many residents have expressed their frustration over recent power outages, Cambridge refuted claims of load shedding.
“Over the last two weeks, we had a lot of weather activity, a number of lightning strikes as well as other things. Some of the outages classified as loads shedding by the public are not laid. I saw a copy of a planned maintenance schedule being circulated on certain media sources as load shedding, – We have no load shedding going on at the moment,” he added.
Cambridge noted that BPL still has about 83 MW of rental generation on New Providence.
“We still have a quantity of rental regeneration being supplied by Aggreko. That is about 40 MW. In total we have about 83 MW on New Providence being supplied by rental units,” said Cambridge.
He noted that the cost of those retail units is “sizable”.
“It is a sizable amount but is not something we would like to be in on a long-term basis.”
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