The Prime Minister and Minister of Finance the Hon. Philip Davis provided the residents of The Bahamas with a list of solutions the government has to ensure a working power system.

“The first element is clear: we have to move from rented engines to permanent modern generation,” the Prime Minister said at the Energy Reform Stakeholder Forum held at Baha Mar Resort on Thursday, March 5, 2026.

He said, “For years, the country paid tens of millions of dollars to use equipment that did not belong to us. Those rentals were a sign of a system stuck in crisis.”

The Prime Minister explained that the new agreements bring in efficient, modern plants so that the money Bahamians pay each month builds assets that sit on the nation’s balance sheet.

He said the second element is fuel, as fuel has always been the biggest driver of consumers’ light bills. “Any plan that pretends otherwise is not honest.”

The Prime Minister said that under the reforms, the government is introducing Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) into the mix and pairing it with a serious hedging programme.

“A large portion of what used to be pure fuel cost is now replaced by a fixed power purchase price. The remaining exposure to fuel prices is then managed at lower and more stable levels.”

He explained that this structure underpins the projected $97 million in savings for consumers in the fuel part of the bill, once the programme is fully rolled out.

The Prime Minister said the third element is clean power, and across the islands, the government is adding utility-scale solar and battery storage to hybrid microgrids.

“Every unit of energy produced by the sun replaces imported diesel and heavy fuel oil.

“That means less vulnerability to global oil shocks, fewer emissions, and systems that can restart and recover more quickly after a storm.”

He said the fourth element is the network itself.

“We have created Bahamas Grid Company as a transmission and distribution company, with Bahamas Power and Light (BPL) holding a 40 per cent share. The transmission and distribution tariff includes money set aside every year for a hurricane restoration fund and for paying down BPL’s old debt.”

The Prime Minister noted that when storms hit, and poles and lines are damaged, this is the mechanism that allows BPL to respond faster and more systematically.

He said, “When the grid company earns a profit, a share of that profit flows back to BPL and therefore to the Bahamian people.”

The Prime Minister said the fifth element is how value is judged. “Every new Power Purchase Agreement has been tested against the true cost of generation in each island.”

He said in some Family Islands, that true cost exceeds 48 cents and in some cases approaches 94 cents per kilowatt hour.

The Prime Minister said, “Those are the hidden figures that have driven subsidies for years.”

He said the new contracts are designed to replace high true costs with lower long-term prices, easing pressure on the system as a whole and putting the government on a path to reduce the Family Island subsidy burden by around half over time.

The Prime Minister said, “All of this has one purpose: to change the direction of the electricity system from permanent crisis to steady progress.”    

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