Bahamas Power and Light (BPL) Corporate Communications Manager Arnette Ingraham has dismissed claims that there will be a hike in electricity bills.

The company announced that the surcharge will increase from 11.3 cents to 12 cents per kilowatt hour, which is less than a penny.

She told the Journal this does not translate into an increase.

“There is no price hike. The price went up by a penny and that’s based on the fuel on the international market as well our operating fuel mixes for that particular month so there is no hike at all,” Ms. Ingraham said.

“We have a tariff and that is sanctioned by law and by Parliament and so the only way we could have any increase is that we have to go Parliament first. If consumption went up then you will see an increase. If your consumption remains unchanged, you won’t see that much of an increase because it is a one penny difference.”

Over the last several weeks, BPL customers, particularly in New Providence, have been plagued with constant blackouts.

Ms. Ingraham assured that the company is looking to bring several rental generators online within this week.

“We are hoping that with those units in place, the frequency in outages that customers would have been experiencing over the last couple of weeks and a great part of the summer would be greatly reduced,” she said.

Ms. Ingraham said as the company continues to work on its maintenance programme.

“Our maintenance programme is going to take some time because we are talking about major overhauls to engines,” she said.

“We plan to start very soon in getting some of these engines offline and getting some of the proper maintenance they need so that they are back on and functioning properly and we don’t see the outages that would have occurred in the past.”