By FAY SIMMONS

Tribune Business Reporter

jsimmons@tribunemedia.net

Bahamas Power and Light (BPL) will give a 50 percent rebate on the base rate to residents in Eleuthera, Long Island, and Cat Island in the next billing cycle, as compensation for repeated power outages experienced this summer.

BPL’s CEO Toni Seymour made the announcement during the Office of the Prime Minister’s weekly press briefing, stating that the utility is “working diligently” to stabilise power generation across the Family Islands.

“I would like to apologise once again to all of our Family Island customers who have been experiencing extended out due to power disruptions, generation shortfalls or whatever the case may be, and to advise that we have we are offering a 50 percent rebate on the base rate for the next billing cycle to the residents of Eleuthera, Long Island and Cat Island,” said Ms Seymour.

She added that BPL allocated $30m for upgrades across the Family Islands in preparation for the peak summer demand, though she noted the funding is only part of the broader investment required.

“We had put a budget in place for what it would have cost us to get the Family Islands prepared for summer — that was around $30m, roughly,” she said.

“And that’s not all of the upgrades that would be required to get it to the level of service that we would want it to be at.”

On Cat Island, residents are currently experiencing four-hour load shedding intervals, but BPL teams are actively working to address the shortfall with both repairs and new generation capacity.

“We have teams on the ground who are currently working to install a brand-new unit in the power station at Cat Island. So initially, we had a failure on one of the units. Cat Island Power Station has four engines installed- we had a failure on one of the units, and about a week later we had a failure on a second unit, which has now reduced us to only two units available at the power station,” said Ms Seymour.

“So while we’re conducting repairs on one of the failed units, we’re also installing a brand-new unit to shore up generation on that island, and we expect to have those completed by mid-next month.”

For Long Island, Ms Seymour said customers can expect more stable generation within the next 48 hours. She explained that one of the island’s three units was damaged by severe weather linked to Tropical Storm Erin, which passed near the southern Bahamas last week.

“We have technicians on the ground that are addressing the generation issues at the Long Island Power Station. We have three units installed, at the plant at Millers and one of the units lost the surge suppressor. We had some heavy winds with the outer bands of Tropical Storm Erin that was passing, and we experienced a number of surges at the power plant,” said Ms Seymour

“The two units can carry the entire load on the island. However, if we lose one of those two, we’re in a load shedding situation. We should have the third unit back up in the next 48 hours or so.”