By SANCHESKA BROWN

Tribune Staff Reporter

sbrown@tribunemedia.net

THOUSANDS of customers can expect further disruption in power supply as the Bahamas Electricity Corporation continues load-shedding until it is able to rectify serious problems at both of its New Providence plants, according to Deputy General Manager of BEC Shavon Cambridge.

Speaking with The Tribune, Mr Cambridge confirmed that the corporation continued to load shed yesterday after two engines, one at Clifton and one at Blue Hills, tripped off-line around 4pm.

As a result, eastern, southern and parts of western New Providence were without power for a little over three hours.

In total, three BEC engines were off-line, when The Tribune went to press, including the large 30 mega watt engine at Clifton Pier. Mr Cambridge said a specialist from Florida arrived in Nassau yesterday to replace the computer in that engine that was destroyed as a result of a lighting strike on Tuesday.

However, he said there is still no certainty that the load shedding will discontinue once that engine is brought on-line.

In the meantime, Mr Cambridge said BEC is disconnecting power to commercial buildings during peak hours to ensure residential customers stay connected.

“We implemented, what we hope to be, a short-term load-shedding measure so it will rotate with customers. No one will be off for more than two hours,” Mr Cambridge said.

“I don’t know the extent of the shortage but once we get the two units back we should be able to provide electricity to the bulk of our customers. Meanwhile, large commercial buildings that are unoccupied overnight like (Department of) Customs and other big facilitates, we will turn them off so we do not inconvenience our residential customers. Most of these buildings have generators anyway.

“The large unit at Clifton has been off from Tuesday and won’t be back on until hopefully Thursday. A specialist has arrived from Florida to replace the CPU that got damaged in the lighting storm. With that back up, a lot of the load-shedding will be stopped, but I cannot say we will be out of load-shedding territory.”

Meanwhile, BEC customers in Abaco also continue to experience long periods of supply interruption after repeated failures of the Wilson City Power Station as well as several “copper thefts”.

In a statement BEC acknowledged the challenges in Abaco and said they are making their “best effort” to ensure supply is completely restored.

“The Wilson City Power Station continues to experience some ‘growing pains’ that have caused periods of supply interruption for Abaco residents,” BEC said yesterday. “While most of these issues have been resolved, at present, challenges associated with a back up battery system at the plant have been responsible for recent outages. BEC has sourced technical expertise from external consultants who are presently assisting in resolving these issues.

“In addition to this, the corporation has experienced challenges on its transmission and distribution network due to the impact of lightning. Despite a considerable financial investment to protect its equipment, the continued theft of copper has left BEC’s system vulnerable to lightning strikes which have also led to further outages.”

These latest round of outages come several weeks after New Providence was plunged into darkness for nearly 12 hours.

During recent weeks, there also have been sporadic outages in the capital and the Family Islands that BEC blamed on lightning strikes, copper theft and engine failures.