By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

Grand Bahama Power Company’s top executive last night voiced optimism it will be “out of the woods” by next week as he revealed: “We’re trying to thread the needle between reliability and affordability.”

Dave McGregor, the electricity supplier’s president, and Caribbean chief operating officer for Emera, its 100 percent owner, told Tribune Business he is confident it will be “in a much better place” once a final six mega watts (MW) of rental generation is installed and brought into service.

Conceding that the recent unreliability is the worst he has encountered during his 11 years with GB Power, he also acknowledged that the utility will have to reassess its contingency planning and availability of back-up generation redundancy following frequent power outages and load shedding that have frustrated the island’s businesses and residents for weeks.

But, warning that any additional investment in new electrical generating units “needs to be paid for”, Mr McGregor told this newspaper that this notion is facing “very strong” opposition and push back from the Grand Bahama community as well as politicians from all sides who have united to oppose its request for a 6.3 percent base rate increase.

As a result, GB Power will now have to balance the need for system reliability with public pressure for affordable energy. Mr McGregor said achieving this balance is “tough but solvable” while revealing that he will likely be able to “assure” Grand Bahama residents that recent outages - many of which have lasted for several hours - are a thing of the past by next week.

He added that the final four Aggreko rental generation units, each with a 1.5 MW capacity, will join the eight already installed to provide a collective 18 MW that fully replaces the loss of GB Power’s main turbine, unit 33, which is now in the US for repairs.

Mr McGregor said the loss of this engine, which on low-demand days typically produces half of GB Power’s supply, had been compounded when another 13 MW unit went down on Friday leading to further outages and load shedding at the weekend.

That latter unit was restored to service on Monday, but the GB Power chief conceded that “a series of failures at the same time puts us in a real bind” with the loss of the larger unit 33 alone leaving “a big hole” that it struggles to fill.

“The recent unreliability has been primarily due to the absence of our biggest unit, unit 33,” Mr McGregor told Tribune Business. “That’s big. On a low-demand day, it’s basically half the capacity. The unreliability when that failed a few weeks ago, we immediately pulled the trigger with Aggreko. We knew that was too big a hole to fill.

“We pulled the trigger on rental generation. It took a week to install. We got eight 1.5 MW units each, which is 12 MW. They’ve been running since the middle of last week. We then had a period of unreliability on the weekend just past. That was due to a second unit, unit 31, falling out of service, which is 13 MW.

“We had a forced outage last Friday. We worked all weekend to get that back running. Even with Aggreko we were short. That unit is back in service and to-date, since Monday, we’ve been OK and not had any shortfall.”

Mr McGregor said the final four rental generation units are “on the way” and he is hoping to install their additional 6 MW by the middle of next week. “That will give us the flexibility to take some of the smaller units off for service,” he added. “The smaller units at West Sunrise plant, they need to be taken off every 1,500 hours for a look.

“In the past, with units out, we’ve not been able to do that. We need the Aggreko units to give us some space, some headroom to take the other engines off. If we lose unit 33, that’s really giving us very little margin. It’s Ok if everything else is running well, but if there are failures elsewhere it puts us in a bind.”

Conceding that he had previously told Tribune Business in late July/early August that GB Power was “out of the woods” on generation shortfalls, Mr McGregor said: “We were out of the woods. Then we entered another woods. We’re through that again now. I’ll give the assurance when the extra Aggreko units are installed next week. Then we’re in a much better place.”

The GB Power chief disclosed that unit 33 will likely be out of service “for at least another month” as key parts undergo repairs in the US. Asked whether the utility needs to review and enhance its generation redundancy and contingency plans, he added that this was a “valid” concern for persons on the outside.

“We’ve got 98 MW of installed capacity to serve 55 MW of load,” Mr McGregor told Tribune Business. “Unfortunately, when we lose unit 33 that’s a big chunk that’s missing. We have plant with capacity but when there’s a series of events, a series of failures at the same time, it puts us in a bind. 

“When you take a step back and look at unit 33, it’s been in service since 2005. It’s a bit large for our system and, when it fails, it leaves a big hole. We are looking at our contingency planning again, looking at whether we need to purchase smaller generation units. We’re looking at whether we need to do things differently. We don’t want to be in this position again.

“More investment in generation needs to be paid for, and we are getting very strong feedback from the political community and wider community that they cannot afford it. We’re trying to thread that needle between affordability and reliability. It’s very tough but solvable.”

Asked whether Grand Bahama’s electricity supply unreliability has ever been this bad before, Mr McGregor replied: “Not since Emera got involved and the West Sunrise plant was built. I think we’ve had some twitches over the last couple of years. Unit 33, that big unit, has not been particularly reliable over the past couple of years. It had failed last year, which required us to bring in Aggreko last year.

“In my 11 years with GB Power I’ve not seen this level of shedding over a period of time. We do need to take a look at our contingency planning, we do need to take a look at redundancy. We may need to go to our regulator [the Grand Bahama Port Authority] and say we need to invest.”

The timing of GB Power’s service unreliability, and generation shortfall woes, could likely not be worse as far as it is concerned given that it has just applied for a 6.3 percent base rate increase to take effect from January 1, 2025, as part of its latest three-year tariff proposal.

Despite Mr McGregor and GB Power asserting that 75 percent of their customer base will either see their all-in electricity costs decrease or remain the same, with fuel charge savings from the utility’s hedging initiative more than offsetting any base rate hike, many GB residents and businesses have focused solely on the latter and reacted with outrage amid the current service and supply deficiencies.