By Bianca Bethel

Freeport News

Summer Intern

With temperatures soaring high three weeks into the hurricane season, the Grand Bahama Power Company (GBPC) wishes to assure its customers that they are very committed and fully prepared for the summer peak and hurricane season.

In a press conference held yesterday at the Peel Street Plant, Director of Generation Joseph Gaskins stated that over the last year, GBPC has improved in areas such as safety, reliability, environmental impact to the community and efficiency.

Adding that GBPC has an excellent record that is renowned in the industry, Gaskins told The Freeport News that the company has one of the best safety records within its fleet.

"From a reliability stand- point, we have been very committed," Gaskins said. "We have went ahead and looked at many issues that have caused concerns last year."

Explaining that a number of procedures took place this year that resulted in numerous improvements and repairs on boilers ( steam generators), Gaskins revealed that boiler number 13 in particular, underwent major improvements.

"A challenge we had is that we noticed last year a rapid decline of wastage on our boiler tube metals. So what we had to do this year is go in and do a replacement of those tubes," Gaskins revealed.

Despite the challenge of replacing the old tubes, Gaskins said the replacements began earlier this year and was completed at the beginning of this month.

"We are very comfortable about the approaching peak season coming up, we will meet that peak and we feel that our units are in the position of readiness," he said.

However, Gaskins disclosed that the GBPC is not quite complete with repairs currently being done to certain units.

Nonetheless, Gaskins assures customers that there are four units particularly units 31 and 32 that are expected to be completed by mid July.

Speaking about hurricanes from the 2004 and 2005 season, Gaskins said that each hurricane taught the GBPC a vital lesson that resulted in lots of revision to procedures.

"Adjustments both company wise and plant wise has been made," he proclaimed.

Gaskins said that Hurricane Frances showed the company that they needed more backup generators. He added that because of this, a backup generator was put in placed last week and another one is expected to be brought on stream next year.

Adding that contracts have also been established with emergency crew systems abroad, Gaskins said additional poles, wire transformers and supplies were also purchased to extradite the recovery process after a hurricane.

Consequently, with the high increase of oil, Gaskins said that customers will face an upgrade in their electricity bill.

"They will see a 4.3% increase related not only to hurricanes, but cost of living a natural progression of the company," he announced.

Revealing that over $300,00 has already been spent on repairs, Gaskins noted that GBPC will roughly spend throughout the rest of the year, $500,000.

"We are committed and are trying to maintain high levels in the system by catching anything that is wrong," Gaskins said.

NEW EQUIPMENT – Director of Generation Joseph Gaskins points to new equipment installed at the Grand Bahama Power Company (GBPC) Plant that will allow the company to be ready for the upcoming summer peak and hurricane season. (Staff photo by Bianca Bethel)