Despite assurances by Bahamas Electricity Corporation (BEC) officials earlier this year, that frequent island-wide black outs would not occur this summer due to improved system capabilities, many areas in New Providence were once again left without power for several hours yesterday.
The blackout, which affected almost every community in New Providence, began shortly after 8 a.m., and was the result of a surge on BEC's system, according to Arnette Ingraham, the corporation's public relations officer.
"Crews were immediately dispatched to restore supplies and to investigate the cause of the surge," said Ingraham."BEC began restoring supplies to its customers less than half-an-hour after the initial fault."
Ingraham said supply was restored to all affected areas around noon.
She said BEC isolated the cause of the fault to a problem on its transmission network but the exact problem had not been identified up to press time.
This is the latest in a string of island-wide outages since May, although BEC has distanced itself from fault in at least one of those incidents.
On May 6, a tractor working on the Airport Gateway Project triggered a blackout after it hit an overhead transmission line on John F. Kennedy Drive, according to the corporation.
On May 30, almost the entire island was again plunged into darkness for hours when two men, employed with a private company, caused damage to major overhead power lines and themselves in the Prince Charles Drive area, BEC said.
During their work, an aluminium ladder reportedly came into contact with one of BEC's 33kV overhead lines, causing the entire system, including generator units to trip offline.
However, BEC admitted that a protective relay that should have activated to isolate the fault malfunctioned.
In March, the corporation announced a $6 million investment in additional generator capacity.
At the time, then BEC Executive Chairman Michael Moss insisted the nation was "not going to have blackouts this summer", with twice as much capacity stocked.
Last year, the capital experienced frequent power outages as the system struggled to handle summer demand, leaving thousands frustrated.
BEC said yesterday it was taking the necessary steps to ensure that these occurrences were, if not eradicated, minimized with little inconvenience to consumers.
The corporation also apologized for the inconvenience caused by yesterday's blackout.

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