Over the Emancipation holiday weekend, thousands of Bahamas Power and Light (BPL) consumers were left frustrated as load shedding intensified causing electricity to go off intermittently in several areas throughout New Providence.

Some Bahamians, who were annoyed by the vexing load shedding issue, complained that they were not properly notified prior to the power outages.

Since last Friday, BPL posted a number of messages on its Facebook page advising consumers of load shedding in three hour intervals in many areas around the island.

The messages and electricity updates were posted continually until Monday. 

In an interview with The Bahama Journal yesterday, Bahamas Electrical Workers Union (BEWU) President Paul Maynard said three generators are down, which caused BPL to increase and intensify load shedding throughout New Providence this past weekend.

“G5, G7 and G10 are down.  That’s 60 megawatts.  Plus, Aggreko messing a damn round.  They are not providing what they are supposed to provide.  So that’s why we got to do a lot of load shedding this weekend, as simple as that,” Maynard told The Bahama Journal.

He suggested that BPL executives should tell Aggreko “carry they ass”.

“But you know that’s their call not mines,” he added.  “Three generators represent 60 megawatts.  That’s a lot and it’s hot.”

The BEWU president said he understands that generator G10 should be back on by Thursday and G7 would be ready by the weekend.  

However, Maynard said G5 would be out for a month or two and stressed that load shedding will continue until December.

“The point is if units go down, we got to load shed and Aggreko, the kind of money we paying them and they still are not giving us the demands,” Maynard explained.

Currently, BPL rents $2 million generators from Aggreko and promised a few months ago that the generators would bring relief to the load shedding issue.