NASSAU, BAHAMAS – Bahamas Power and Light’s (BPL) chief executive said that the company expects about 10,000 consumers in Abaco by next summer, slightly above its pre-Dorian levels, forecasting a need for 30 MW to meet its peak demand.
Shervonn Cambridge, while speaking as a panelist at the Abaco Business Outlook, noted that the power company has been rebuilding its energy infrastructure in Abaco at a higher level of storm preparedness.
“We have seen that Abaco is rebuilding bigger and better. We have to plan not only for growth in terms of demand but also look at what that means in terms of infrastructure,” said Cambridge, noting the need for increased generation capacity and resilient infrastructure. He noted that a significant amount of BPL’s infrastructure was damaged during Hurricane Dorian and that most of it has been restored to date.
“When you talk about the growth in Abaco, pre-Dorian we had a consumer base of about 9,900,” said Cambridge. He added, “By next summer we can expect well over 10,000.”
Cambridge added, “Our pre-Dorian peak was at 27.5 megawatts. I think our peak thus far this year is 21.5 MW. Our forecasting is showing we are going to need about 30 MW of capacity for next summer. We have about 48 MW installed at Wilson City, of which 36 are available right now. We have another 8 MW at the Marsh Harbour power station, and we are just starting the renovation there to see if we can get that available before next summer. Between that and what we have at Wilson City will give us 56 MW in total.”
Cambridge noted that transmitting power at 60 MW from Wilson City has been impacted by lightning strikes, which are the main cause of most outages.
“We have been analyzing our fault outage reports, and most of our outages now are a result of lightning. That will be a reality until the storm comes back. What we have done now is we are putting in more grounding wires on our static lines. We are now going every three poles to try and direct that lightning to the ground. It pains me to say that when you do it with copper, individuals see it as an opportunity to make money. We have had copper theft, and we have moved to other materials that are not as efficient as copper. If you see it, report it because it is hurting the integrity of the system,” said Cambridge.
