“BPL will have to explain to the Bahamian people why we had those outages”
NASSAU, BAHAMAS — Bahamas Power and Light (BPL) will have to take some responsibility for the recent power outages, said Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Works Desmond Bannister yesterday.
Thousands of residents on New Providence were plunged into darkness overnight on Friday after an “operational glitch” at the Clifton Pier Power Plant resulted in an island-wide outage.
The latest blackout came amidst a series of power outages over the past week as the power company gears up to meet peak summer demand.
Bannister, who was speaking to reporters outside Cabinet, noted that he does have “specific concerns” about the upcoming summer.
“They are not load-shedding incidents. BPL is going to have to hold the persons who have caused them responsible. Where persons have caused them, BPL is going to have to hold them responsible.”
While he would not indicate whether those responsible for the outages are internal employees or a corporation, Bannister said: “BPL will have to explain to the Bahamian people why we had those outages.”
Finnish technology group Wärtsilä, operators of the power plant at Station A at BPL’s Clifton Pier Power Station, advised in a statement that around 2.30am on May 20 that an operational glitch at the station resulted in generating units going offline.
The company advised that it was in the process of investigating to determine the root cause of the failure “with the goal of making sure that there would not be a reoccurrence”.
In a follow-up statement yesterday, BPL said it received the results of the Wärtsilä investigation but was conducting its own “due diligence for the sake of completeness and transparency”.
Earlier this month, parts of New Providence experienced power outages as BPL encountered issues with fuel at its Blue Hills Power Plant.
BPL said at the time that its provider, Sun Oil, had “assured that all necessary steps are being taken to remedy the matter” and was working to stabilize the power supply.
Bannister could not indicate what the status of that matter was.
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