By FAY SIMMONS

Tribune Business Reporter

jsimmonstribunemedia.net

ELEUTHERA is receiving support to deal with its electricity woes, according to Energy and Transport Minister JoBeth Coleby-Davis, who said islanders will soon see relief.

Speaking to reporters, Mrs Coleby-Davis attributed the frequent outages to the island’s “aged and deteriorated” infrastructure.

“Eleuthera has been faced with a lot of challenges, because in Eleuthera particularly, we had a lot of aged and deteriorated infrastructure,” said Mrs Coleby–Davis.

She said teams have been deployed to provide additional support, and new generators are being procured to enhance the power supply.

“We have teams that are on the ground in Eleuthera to bring extra support. Some of our teams flew in from Long Island about two or three weeks ago. We’re trying to get two of our generators that’s been on the ground since 2019 up and running. There’s a lot of work that they’ve been doing in the last three weeks on Harbour Island to get those up and running, and that would bring more support on Harbour Island.”

She noted that Harbour Island’s power demand has grown “tremendously” in the past 18 months, surpassing the existing capacity of three to six megawatts.

She explained that the additional generation should improve the electrical supply significantly once operational.

“Harbour Island particularly has grown tremendously. We’ve seen their demand growth go from three megawatts to six megawatts in the space of maybe a year and a half. And so that growth actually puts more of a demand on us in supplying electricity,” she explained.

“When we would have had a plant that is set to supply six megawatts, we’re now seeing sometimes at peak, they’re going up to seven. And so these extra generators would give us a balance in terms of them pulling more demand, but having sufficient generation to support the needs there. So, we should see greater improvements there with our generators on stream. “

She also highlighted ongoing efforts to manage vegetation in Eleuthera to prevent overgrown trees from disrupting power supply.

She maintained that “great improvements” are underway and islands that have been experiencing electricity woes are a priority.

“In Eleuthera, we’ve been working great deal on vegetation management, cutting down a lot of the trees growing up and leaves growing up on our transmission and distribution lines, that caused a lot of disruption of transmitting power, but also overhauling a lot of our machines to make sure that they are strong enough to manage and carry us through this hotter climate that we’re seeing,” she said.

“Great improvements are coming, and we have those islands that have been experiencing challenges fast priority and we’ve given them some support on their bills because of that.”

Despite these efforts, Bahamas Power and Light (BPL) notified Eleuthera consumers that their power supply would be rotated in two-hour intervals due to problems at the Hatchet Bay Power Station.

“Due to the challenges at Hatchet Bay Power Station we will rotate areas in 2hr intervals until we are able to meet load demands,” said BPL.

The company warned that rotation times and affected areas might vary depending on conditions.

On Wednesday, the island experienced additional outages due to an “unexpected failure” of a component at the plant.

Rock Sound also experienced an outage after Water and Sewerage made contact with a power line while conducting work in the area.

“BPL advises customers in the Rock Sound area that the power supply was disrupted due to a third-party incident that came into contact with our power lines,” said BPL.

“Our crews are on-site and are working to restore services.”