The Bahamas Power and Light Company Ltd. (BPL) on Monday evening, released a statement, informing of a major system failure at the Hatchet Bay Power Station on Sunday, May 12th, 2024, which had left customers in North Eleuthera without power for more than 30 hours, and as of 8pm on Monday evening – still without electricity.
The company stated, “While the cause of the system failure will be investigated, BPL’s team has been working for the past 30+hours to restore service to customers between the Hatchet Bay Power Station and Current, in North Eleuthera.”
Providing further detail, the statement read, “The system disturbance initially caused an island-wide outage; however, supply was eventually restored to customers in South Eleuthera who are fed from the Rock Sound Power Station and then to all customers south of BPL’s Hatchet Bay Power Station. Once the team attempted to re-energize its north feeder (out of the Hatchet Bay Power Station), they discovered major switch gear damage. The extent of the damage required expertise from New Providence and a senior engineer was flown into North Eleuthera on Sunday evening to assist the local team with completing repairs and restoring service.”
The company provided, “Sunday night and into Monday, BPL’s team worked non-stop to complete major repairs, including cabling and system reconfiguration. The complexity of this work has extended the outage time for customers in North Eleuthera, nonetheless, BPL’s leadership is confident that it has the best personnel on the ground to complete the work and eventually restore service to customers.”
Concerning the timing for completion of restoration efforts, BPL supplied, “At present, the Company is unable to give an estimated time for restoration; however, the team has made significant progress and is working on synchronization to regulate electricity coming out of the Hatchet Bay Power Station. BPL remains confident that supply will be restored within the next few hours.
“BPL apologizes to its customers experiencing this prolonged outage and assures them that this is an extraordinary event outside the Company’s control. BPL asks for the continued patience of its customers in North Eleuthera while its local team works to restore service as quickly and safely as possible.”
Update:
At 10pm on Monday evening, May 13th, 2024, BPL released a statement informing that electricity supplies to North Eleuthera had finally been restored.
The statement read, “Bahamas Power and Light (BPL) has restored electricity supply in North Eleuthera as of 9:22 pm on Monday evening (May 13, 2024). BPL sincerely apologizes to our North Eleuthera customers who were without power for more than 30 hours following a major system failure at the Hatchet Bay Power Station.
“The extended outage was caused by a switchgear failure that required a highly complex operation including cabling and reconfiguration to distribute power from the Hatchet Bay Power Station.
“BPL thanks its on-island team that worked around the clock until services were restored Monday night and, again, thanks its North Eleuthera customers for their patience while the team worked.
“Sunday’s system failure and the subsequent challenges are an extraordinary circumstance as the Company remains committed to providing safe and reliable power across the entire country.”
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