Bahamas Government and Opposition Blame Each Other Over Island-Wide Blackout

NASSAU, Bahamas – Government and the opposition traded blame as to who is responsible for Thursday’s island-wide power outage that the government said was due to a suspected underground cable fault and explosion at the Blue Hill Power Station.

Prime Minister Philip Davis (second from left) listens as officials from the Bahamas Power and Light (BPL) explain the situation at the Blue Hills Power StationPrime Minister Philip Davis, who toured the Blue Hill Power Station with officials from the Bahamas Power and Light (BPL) apologised to the country, saying “we understand how disruptive and frustrating these outages are, especially in this heat,” adding that the island-wide blackout is the result of “acts beyond our control”.

He said incidents like these remind the population of the state of play of BPL, adding “we inherited a very archaic and end of life, most times, system.

“The only way to have it repaired is to replace much of what we are doing. Hence, replacement of our grid and the other components as necessary to ensure safe and reliable electricity through transmissions and distribution.

“As I’ve indicated, it is incidents like this that demonstrate what we have inherited and we are fixing it. It is not a complaint by us, it is just that we have to fix what we have,” he said, urging Bahamians to be patient with the government.

“I’m frustrated as well. There will be growing pains to get to where we need to be because of what we inherited,” said Davis, whose administration has promised a far-reaching energy reform plan which involves a series of power purchase agreements (PPAs), as well as the arrangement to upgrade the T&D system.

Prime Minister Davis said that he remains frustrated because the act of what caused these outages is not because of lack of maintenance, not because of the transformative work that is happening but rather because of factors beyond our control.

“For example, the heat that we are experiencing. If you do your investigative reporting and understand what’s happening around the world, you will see that The Bahamas is not unique with what is happening…

“Look what caused the blackout. It wasn’t because of the lack of effort on the part of BPL and the carrying out of initiatives that were started out under our transformative initiatives. It was because of acts beyond our control.

“You have a transformer that blew up because of overheating of underground cables. Was that man’s fault? The excessive heat, the record heat that we are experiencing over the last several weeks. The month of May was hottest in history. Heat overbears our transmission and distribution system.”

But the main opposition Free National Movement (FNM) has aid the blame squarely at the feet of the government.

BLP leader Michael Pintard said when the party left office in September of 2021, Station A at BPL was online,  providing 150 MW of power.

“We had an additional 35 MW of power that came from the GE generators. Furthermore, we brought those assets that were already offline back online. So, generation was not an issue under the Minnis administration. As you went into the summer of 2020 and 2021, there wasn’t load shedding as we are now seeing it.”

He said New Providence residents have been experiencing frequent and often prolonged power outages for weeks, despite pledges from the government that BPL was prepared to handle summer demand.

The island-wide outage on Thursday is the second in less than a month and Pintard said that the PLP government is responsible for the current state of affairs.

“They canceled the Wärtsilä deal. That contract for Station A was ended by them. And then, of course, they took the GE generators offline. We stabilized the transmission and distribution network. Was there more work to be done? Of course, we never denied that. In fact, we had planned a US$50 million upgrade.

“That upgrade to the system was going to happen through the rate reduction bond, the same rate reduction bond that the Davis administration came in and canceled,” he said, accusing the government of embarking upon a different route to solve what it said amounted to one billion US dollars in challenges at BPL.

The Opposition Leader said the ruling Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) is to blame for the “chaos” that is now being experienced at BPL, adding “they have had carte blanche.

“In other words, nobody has been able to interrupt what they have done in terms of privatizing BPL, and yet they have not been able to provide cleaner power, more affordable power, or worst of all, consistent power for the Bahamian people,” Pintard said.