Officials at Bahamas Power and Light (BPL) say that the increase in demand for electricity has created a strain on the electricity network which is the reason for recent power outages experienced on the island of New Providence.

When questioned on the issue outside of the House of Assembly the Minister of Works and Utilities, the Hon. Alfred Sears told ZNS News, “we have given BPL, based on our policy, that we have to ramp up the effort to incorporate renewable energy in its power generation. Over the next twelve months we hope that there will be 20 megawatts of power, two ten megawatt solar generating fields that will help to alleviate the financial burden as well as give more resilience to the generation of power in The Bahamas by BPL.”

According to the Minister BPL is “currently working on a business plan that will incorporate more technology, smart metering and also incorporating solar power generation so that there will be less demand in terms of its scarce resources for fuel.”

In response to the outages BPL has returned four megawatts of rental generation to service and an addition 15 megawatts was made available. BPL is also working on a 28 megawatt unit that added to current generation efforts will adequately meet demand in New Providence.

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