By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

A LIGHTNING strike sparked a fire at a transformer serving Bahamas Power and Light’s rental generation plant at Blue Hills early Tuesday, knocking generating units offline and triggering power outages across New Providence.

The blaze, which caused extensive damage to the 25 MVA transformer, broke out shortly after 5.30am during a storm and was confined to the southwestern section of the Blue Hills Power Station.

BPL Station Manager Kennard Whyms said the lightning strike hit equipment associated with the Aggreko rental plant and created a fault that caused other generating units then carrying load to trip offline.

“One of the isolators is burnt,” Mr Whyms said. “That's exactly where we think the lightning strike occurred.”

He said the strike damaged the transformer and pointed to a nearby pole that was still smouldering after firefighters extinguished the blaze.

“When the lightning strike occurred,” he said, “it actually created a fault on the system at the plant, causing the other units that were on load to come off load.”

Mr Whyms said BPL was working to return the units to service and stabilise the system.

The company said it had restored all affected areas by 9am Tuesday. BPL had initially advised customers that restoration was expected by noon or earlier.

Fire Services said it was alerted to an electrical fire shortly before 6am and dispatched two fire engines to the power station.

Firefighters found the blaze confined to the transformer and brought it under control, but the equipment sustained extensive damage.

Preliminary information given to Fire Services indicated that a private electrical company manages the transformer. The company’s site manager told investigators he suspected a lightning strike caused the fire.

BPL footage from the scene showed the aftermath of the blaze, including blackened and melted material, debris and severely charred wiring.

It was explained that the lightning strike caused oil inside the transformer to heat and boil, forcing oil through a leaking valve.

The outage disrupted electricity supplies across numerous parts of New Providence and also affected some schools.

Education Minister Chester Cooper said schools opened Tuesday morning despite several being without electricity and others dealing with flooding concerns.

He said school officials would make decisions based on conditions at individual campuses, with safety taking priority.

“We teach resilience,” he said, “and we don't allow a a spry of rain or electricity being off in one area to stop the show.”

The fire and outages also prompted renewed criticism from the Free National Movement over the resilience of New Providence’s electricity system.

FNM Deputy Leader Shanendon Cartwright acknowledged that the government could not control the weather but questioned whether sufficient protections and backup systems were in place to prevent a lightning strike from causing such widespread disruption.

“Thunderstorms and lightning strikes are foreseeable realities in The Bahamas — not rare or unimaginable events,” Mr Cartwright said.

He called for answers about the condition of lightning-protection and surge-suppression systems at Blue Hills, the level of redundancy in the transmission network and what infrastructure upgrades would follow the incident.

“The government must now present a comprehensive power-resilience strategy that includes modern lightning-protection systems, stronger transmission safeguards, adequate redundancy, rapid-response protocols and transparent reporting following every major outage,” he said.

Mr Cartwright said outages carry consequences beyond inconvenience, pointing to risks to food and medication, lost revenue for businesses, disrupted essential services and dangers for people who rely on electrically powered medical equipment.

“A lightning strike may be an act of nature,” he said. “A fragile grid without sufficient protection, redundancy and resilience is a failure of planning.”

The outage also sparked frustration on social media, where residents complained about BPL’s reliability and repeated disruptions during bad weather.

One wrote on X: “Lightning strikes all over the damn world, but BPL seems to be the only power company who friggen blows up every time there’s an inkling of a thunderstorm.”