Officials at the Bahamas Power and Light Company are blaming a car accident and a fire for outages that occurred in several areas in New Providence this week.

In a statement sent out last evening, BPL said just over half of the company’s customers were impacted by the power outages on Tuesday.

“A vehicle accident on Shirley Street; a cable fault in the Imperial Park area; and a fire in the New Providence well fields that impacted overhead transmission lines were the causes of these outages,” officials said.

“Further, during the month, BPL’s system was impacted by other events causing periods supply interruption. Generator trips, third party interference as well as planned and emergency maintenance may have resulted in what customers deem to be frequent outages.”

The company maintains that none of these outages were a result of generation shortfalls as the present fleet is capable of meeting existing customer demand.

Officials added that while the company understands the frustrations of customers during the outages, the disruptions were unavoidable.

“However, BPL can assure its customers that when there is a problem its teams immediately respond to minimize the duration of the outage and the amount of customers impacted,” the release said.

“The company remains focused on its objectives to provide its customers with improved service and will continue to implement strategies and technologies to mitigate future occurrences and expedite recovery when necessary.”

BPL asks for its customers’ patience and full support as it works on immediate and long term fixes to improve energy reliability in the country.