By NICO SCAVELLA

Tribune Staff Reporter

nscavella@tribunemedia.net

CUSTOMERS may see a cost reduction in their electricity bill in July, Bahamas Electricity Corporation (BEC) Chairman Leslie Miller confirmed yesterday.

Mr Miller said BEC has recently completed negotiations with Aggreko - the world's largest temporary power generation company - for the rental of equipment that would provide an additional 40 megawatts of power to the corporation, which he said would be in place by the first week in May.

The move, which he called a "short-term fix," would cost the corporation about $8m for a rental period of six to eight months. However, he said the corporation may seek to extend the rental period.

Nonetheless, in doing so, Mr Miller said the temporary acquisition would further, if not completely, mitigate the chance of reoccuring power outages as experienced last summer, as well as cause a reduction in the bills of consumers.

"The board just agreed to award a contract to one of the major international companies that has serviced us before with the engines; we're going with them again for 40 megawatts of power," he said. "It's going to cost us right under $8 million for a six-month period. Actually it's 30 weeks that we've rented those equipment for, we may go further.

"Now because of the amount of fuel that those generators use, it is much less than what we use at Blue Hills, so we'll end up with a net savings of about $4.5 million and we intend to ask the government to let us recoup our cost for the generators out of that, so that we don't have to pay anything.

"The Bahamian people are still going to get a reduction in their bill. So even with the costs we'll be paying, we'll be saving even more money instead of using Blue Hills, and that's what we intend to do."

He added: "Those savings will come probably in their July bill, because it takes time to tie into the grid. By the first week in May, we want to have those engines here, into the grid, and then we'll start producing, generating, and providing the people with little added electricity from there."

Mr Miller's statements, made as he addressed the Rotary Club of East Nassau, come after an island-wide power outage affected the island of New Providence last weekend.

Although subsequently revealed to have been caused by a "fire in the trenches" at the Blue Hills Power Station, there was speculation that the blackout was a result of mega resort Baha Mar "testing" its facilities in preparation for its March 27 opening.

That rumour was subsequently refuted by Mr Miller last week, who said the outage had nothing to do with Baha Mar.

Yesterday, however, Mr Miller said the corporation is currently providing power to Baha Mar, and said the resort will open its doors to the public at no expense to the corporation or customers.

"Baha Mar is going to take up 16 megawatts of power at full speed," he said. "Right now they're taking up about six to eight megawatts. We'll be ready for Baha Mar during the summer. Clifton is now in pretty decent shape and Blue Hills is back up to scratch.

"We expect that the contribution from Baha Mar would be anywhere between $2.5 million to $3 million per month on their bill, and we look forward to it because we need the money. And we want to provide them with the best service at the cheapest price. So we look forward to Baha Mar coming on stream."