Communication Over BPL Outages Remains ‘Key’
Senior representatives from Bahamas Power and Light (BPL), gathered with Harbour Island hotel operators and technicians, at a Bahamas Hotel and Tourism Association (BHTA) “power relevant” meeting held at Valentines Resort & Marina in Harbour Island recently.
The public-private sector stakeholder group has met on numerous occasions as part of an ongoing collaborative effort to discuss and determine strategies to best “weather” power supply and distribution issues that continue to arise, as the power company strives to stabilize and improve the energy environment in Harbour Island and mainland Eleuthera as part of their “Eleuthera Revitalization Project”.
Private sector partners included representatives from The Dunmore, Pink Sands, Coral Sands, Eleven Bahama House, Rock House, Runaway Hill, Valentines Resort and Marina, and a key property management representative, all of whom collectively represent the largest BPL consumer base on the island. The private/public sector collective met at The Cove, Eleuthera in 2024, and again in January 2025, at Coral Sands, Harbour Island, at the behest of The Bahamas Hotel and Tourism Association, who sought to create a means by which the private and public sector partners could, amongst other aims, establish a cohesive, productive, meaningful communication strategy between integral tourism sector participants, and BPL.
Omari Headley, a Board of Director of The BHTA representing Family Islands, and the General Manager of The Dunmore in Harbour Island, who helped co-ordinate and execute the most recent meeting stated; “Communication is Key, while we recognize unforeseen circumstances will inevitably arise and impact the supply of power to customers throughout the community, if we know in advance when BPL is planning to undertake works that could or would result in unstable or interrupted power, we can move to mitigate the adverse impact, for our guests, our staff. We can plan accordingly, to go offline, to ensure we have enough fuel in our generators, to communicate the outage to guests in advance of its arrival. In addition, fluctuating power can be more damaging to our equipment than no power, so if we know if BPL is going to be changing out equipment, or working on Harbour Islands power generators in a way which would cause unstable power, we would rather go on self-generation and protect our integral, hard-to-replace, equipment.”
Headley went on to say, about the most recent meeting; “The partnership has been successful as communication has improved substantively, we know there is more work to be done, but we were very pleased to meet with the “powers that be” to understand what was behind some of the most recent challenges, and when and what, specifically, was being done to address the issues. At the meeting, we emphasized our continued commitment to assist, as we have been asked, and have willingly obliged, to go offline during critical times to help the community stay online, as our power requirements are significant. We fully recognize that BPL is making an enormous effort to overhaul deteriorating infrastructure that has been in place for decades. It is a massive, complicated undertaking, but we are here to help, however, we are best enabled when we are “in the know” so we can make provisions to ensure, to the best of our ability, that adverse impacts of power interruptions are mitigated for our guests, our team members, our operations, our equipment, when and where possible.”
The Bahamas Hotel and Tourism Association (BHTA) will continue to create a conduit of connection between tourism stakeholders and public sector partners, to advance and assist in ensuring the tourism product that is showcased and ultimately provided, reflects the best the Bahamas has to offer to local and foreign visitors who visit our shores.
Caption: Senior representatives from Bahamas Power and Light (BPL), gathered with Harbour Island hotel operators and technicians, and other key private stakeholders at a Bahamas Hotel and Tourism Association (BHTA) “power relevant” meeting held at Valentines Resort & Marina in Harbour Island recently.
