By KHRISNA VIRGIL

Deputy Chief Reporter

kvirgil@tribunemedia.net

BAHAMAS Power and Light (BPL) CEO Pamela Hill said the electricity provider has restored around 15 to 20 per cent of New Providence’s electricity supply as it juggles infrastructural damage and challenges at its Clifton Pier generation station in the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew.

However, according to Shevonn Cambridge, BPL’s Deputy General Manager of Engineering and Operations, it could take another three days before about 70 per cent of the capital’s power is restored.

During a tour of several of BPL’s problem areas - including Bain town and Fox Hill - and its Clifton station on Saturday, Craig Knowles, assistant engineer with responsibility for overhead construction, explained that BPL’s work has been hindered by several factors, which include first having to trim trees blown down by Matthew’s vicious winds before work to downed poles can begin and heavy traffic on the streets as motorists scramble around for essentials.

And while the jetty at Clifton Pier has been confirmed as severely damaged, BPL said that will in no way affect their fuel supply, noting that despite the jetty issue there are other ways to get fuel onto the island. To that end, BPL is working on an alternative plan, even though the company says it has sufficient fuel to ensure they are operational for a long time.

Still, Mrs Hill appealed for consumers to exercise patience as BPL takes the next several days to re-energise areas around the capital that have continuously been without power supply since the monster storm hit the island three days ago.

She said: “As far as the power and the restoration effort is of right now we’ve got about 15 to 20 per cent of the island restored and that restoration has been phased.

“Our first focus has been on the critical infrastructure. As you can imagine it is key that we have our hospitals with power and so we have been able to do that. Likewise key is the police station and other infrastructure. We have been working closely with the water authority in order to bring that online so that’s been our first order of business.

“From there it’s been to focus on our transmission to make sure that the generation is OK (at Clifton Pier). Same thing at Blue Hills.”

She continued: “Next thing that we are going to be doing is now that we have done just about all of our assessment in your neigbourhoods is to begin our restoration of the transmission line themselves and from there to move on to distribution.

“In terms of how long this will take first thing I want to urge is patience as well as support in helping to make sure that critical areas that our crews will need to access are kept clear.

“Second thing that I want to urge is if you see lines that are lying on the ground that seem to be causing some kind of impediment to your house or other area to please stay clear of that. We are in the process of testing and energising these lines and would not want anyone to be hurt as we move through that process.”

Meanwhile, Mr Cambridge suggested that BPL is doing well in terms of ensuring the needed megawatts of power supply are achieved. He said despite having to undertake a massive cleanup effort at the Clifton Pier plant, BPL has been able to secure 110 of the 177 megawatts capability from this facility.

“We have done a lot of the clean up and we’ve got our engines here prepped to start.,” he said. “We have roughly 177 megawatts installed here (at Clifton Pier) and out of that we have 110 that is ready to go right now. So we don’t foresee any generation challenges.

“Also at our other facility at Blue Hills by the end of the day we should have 100 megawatts there to go as well so we don’t anticipate any generation problems. But as you can see we have a lot of work a head of us in terms of cleaning up and really getting the place back to where it needs to be.

“It’s basically getting the power out of the power station and up town to our distribution centres. We have our primary substations and from there we distribute to the other small substations and then down to the consumer level so its a tiered approach. You go from the high end and you come down and that’s the approach that we are taking now.”

Asked to place a time frame on BPL’s work, Mr Cambridge said: “All the customers is a stretch, but I can tell you we probably will have about 75 to 80 per cent of the customers back within the next three days or so.

“It’s that last 20 per cent that’s really going to take an extra couple of days.”