While on paper, Bahamas Power and Light (BPL) has enough generation on the ground to meet peak demands on New Providence, it is contending with aging and failing engines, despite having seven new engines at Clifton Pier, a new aeroderivative engine at Blue Hills, and a generation rental agreement with a FOCOL subsidiary, Minister of Works and Utilities Alfred Sears said yesterday during the Office of the Prime Minister's weekly press briefing, adding that there is a need for more rental generation to shore-up the island's power needs.

The seven new engines put in under the former Free National Administration administration at Clifton Pier were expected to generate 132.5 megawatts of power. The aeroderivative engine at Blue Hills added 34 megawatts of power to the island's grid.

FOCOL's Bahamas Utilities Company Limited is providing about 43 megawatts, BPL Chief Executive Officer Shevonn Cambridge said during the press briefing. Those additions to the grid, all put in less than five years ago, should provide about 209.5 megawatts of stable power to the grid.

Sears said yesterday that BPL currently has an installed capacity of 375 megawatts, with 270 megawatts currently operable. He added that BPL currently has a 25 megawatt/hour battery storage system that can handle outages for a period of time. Sears said this summer, the peak demand has the potential to hit 270 megawatts and has never surpassed 263 megawatts.

"On the surface it appears that BPL has sufficient generation to meet the peak demand. However, we are talking really about machines," said Sears.

"So, like any appliance or machinery we have in our homes or businesses, the potential exists for them to break down. The loss of more than one engine at any given time, puts BPL in a precarious position, where it may not be able to meet the demand of the entire island.

"If this happens, as it did last weekend, BPL employs several mitigating measures. The first is it presently has 25 megawatt/hour battery storage that can handle system disturbances and any loss of generation, by temporarily providing power until an available standby unit can be energized, or until minor repairs can be completed.

"This system has been operable for more than a month, and has worked well to mitigate some of the company's intermittent generation shortages.

"Secondly, BPL also relies on its Generation Assistance Program, known as GAP, when they are instances of significant shortfall. The company relies on its relationship with large commercial customers like hotels to use their own supply standby generation, to allow BPL to maintain supply to small commercial and residential customers.

"Or three, on rare occasions like this past weekend, where the company lost approximately 60 megawatts, load shedding is a last resort, and it's usually managed on a rotation in two-hour intervals."

Sears said recently that the long-term fix for BPL's power woes is to add solar power and liquefied natural gas (LNG) to the power mix.

He said yesterday that BPL's goal is to replace its aging engines with green energy solutions.

Meanwhile, maintenance of the power company's existing engines is an important part of BPL's plan, Cambridge said.

"So we have a maintenance schedule, and for the most part, we follow the manufacturer's recommended maintenance," said Cambridge.

"But what has happened is over the last couple of years, after COVID and Dorian, all the rest of that, supply chains are interrupted. And so there have been some delays in securing the parts that we need to carry out overhauls in a timely manner.

"But what I can tell you is that for this maintenance season, we just have about two more units that are currently underway. And we expect those back by the end of July. So as far as subscribing to the prescribed maintenance schedules, we do that.

"But again, these engines are up in age. And so the reliability tends to go down as the units get older, regardless of carrying out the maintenance."

Cambridge added that what the population might consider load shedding over the past several weeks has actually been weather-related outages, planned outages or the destruction of BPL's property by accident.

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