Customers will begin to see a hike in their electricity bills by as early as next month as a result of repeated engine failures that have led to countless power outages, Bahamas Electricity Corporation (BEC) Chairman Leslie Miller said Friday.

“The surcharge is going to go up appreciably due to the fact that we had to rely more on Blue Hill than Clifton Pier, every day that we have to rely on Blue Hill over Clifton with the total output at Blue Hill – it cost us an extra quarter of a million dollars per day for fuel, its $10,000 an hour, its approximately $250,000 a day extra that compute out to as much as five sets per kilowatt hour on your next electricity bill.”

The power company experienced three engine failures on Friday; this sparked a high level of frustration from BEC customers who took to social media and news outlets to demand a better quality of service from the power company.

One of the engines was repaired on Friday and Mr. Miller said he hopes to have those two additional engines up and running today.

Mr. Miller offered an apology to customers and renewed his call for a new power plant.

“We have a problem that we have been preaching now for the last two years, we need more spinning reserves at Clifton to enable that when these things occur, we can shut an engine down, repair the engine properly and put it back online, you can’t do that without the spear capacity, we need the 128 new megawatts plant at Clifton, that the answer,” he said.

“If you use Clifton you get cheaper electricity, if you use blue hill you pay more for it.”

Mr. Miller said that BEC is looking to bring in additional generators to reduce the level of power outages and meet the future electricity demand from the upcoming mega Baha Resort.