NASSAU, BAHAMAS — Bahamas Power and Light (BPL) consumers can expect to see a huge difference in their electricity bills this summer, Works Minister Desmond Bannister said yesterday.
Bannister told reporters ahead of a Cabinet meeting that addressing the utility’s transmission and distribution system is the ‘next target’.
“We have begun hedging,” he said.
“I want everyone to look at your bill this month and look at your bills for the rest of the summer. You will see a marked difference. Instead of us paying the $0.19 cents that we were paying last summer we are paying $0.10 cents. That is a huge difference in what you were paying in terms of charges by BPL.”
BPL announced late last month that the July 2020 fuel charge will drop to about 10 cents, with the goal being to hold fuel costs to that level going forward, now that the government has given the utility permission to begin hedging.
Bannister said the utility has addressed load shedding, an issue that was prevalent last summer, much to the ire of its consumers.
“This time last year everyone was coming to me about load shedding. Let’s look at the success BPL has had. There has been earned success. It’s been 20 years since we can say that we have had a summer with no load shedding.”
Bannister said that while various communities in New Providence have experienced disruption in power supply, these were related to weather, transmission and distribution, human error or lightening strikes and not due to a generation shortfall.
“We have to improve transmission and distribution. That is the next target. We targeted generation this past year.”
