BPL: As of yesterday morning, power was fully restored to Bimini

NASSAU, BAHAMAS – Having experienced intermittent power outages after a fire destroyed two of its engines on the island of Bimini last week, Bahamas Power and Light (BPL) reported that as of 10:30 a.m. yesterday, the entire island was restored to BPL’s power grid.

On Monday, May 27, a fire destroyed two engines at BPL on Bimini, forcing the company to conduct intermittent load shedding between Alice Town and Bailey Town.

Yesterday, BPL’s Director of Public Relations, Quincy Parker, said power was fully restored to the island after several El Greco generators were transported from the capital to Bimini.

“The difficulty that the fire caused was that it took out two of our engines and we had an immediate shortfall, because some of the other engines [in Bimini] were down for repairs and maintenance,” Parker said.

“Also, the Caterpillar engines which are supposed to provide supplemental generation, some of those developed problems as well and so we flew in contractors to work on the Caterpillar engines and a team went to work feverishly to get those repaired and into service.

“Also, over the weekend, we flew in some extra El Greco generators from here in New Providence [to Bimini].”

Parker said the movement of generators from the capital to Bimini is not expected to affect generation throughout New Providence.

“We have at Blue Hills more than enough El Greco generation to pick up the slack. This [move of generators] was the determination that was made in terms of where to source the extra generation and Bimini was an emergency situation.”

As it now stands, Parker said BPL is very anxious to get its new base load generation up and running at Clifton Pier, as it would allow the power provider to focus on fully generating other jurisdictions and bolstering its Family Island operations.

“So station A is not only about New Providence, it is an anchor plank in our platform to reform and restore services throughout the islands,” Parker said.

The BPL public relations director also noted that even though the company is not presently load shedding, the loss of generation is never anticipated.

“We can’t anticipate load shedding because load shedding is instituted when there is an unexpected break in our ability to provide service. Advisories are sent out to cut service for overhead maintenance or to repair a transformer so as much advanced notice that we can give people we do give,” Parker said.