Sarah MacDonald, President & CEO of Grand Bahama Power Company spent her second week at the helm, meeting members of the Grand Bahama Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday. MacDonald took the time to share with the filled room her experiences since her arrival on island, as well as discuss some of the company initiatives for the island. Photo: Erik J. Russell

Freeport, Grand Bahama – Sarah MacDonald, President & CEO of Grand Bahama Power Company spent part of her second week at the helm meeting members of the Grand Bahama Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday.  MacDonald, who was making good on a promise to speak at the Chamber, took the time to give the filled room her take on events since her arrival on island.  

Noting that protestors and a Category 3 Hurricane heralded her arrival she felt she had been on a lightning speed learning curve about GBPC.  “The hurricane allowed me to work along with my staff and I must say I was impressed with their work efforts and their care to get the customers back on line.”  

MacDonald took the time to review both GBPC’s and its parent company Emera’s goals for the future.   She showed how temporary generation brought on the island to improve reliability has now cut outages by 50% and updated the Chamber members on the new $80M power plant being built on West Sunrise, already employing 45 Bahamians.  

Looking forward MacDonald said she had just finished a meeting about alternative energy possibilities here in Grand Bahama.  “My meeting was a review of preliminary results which we still need to research,” she said.  “Wind is looking to be a viable option but natural gas is also a very strong possibility but not anything we have committed to yet.  I hope to have more information in a month and I will share that with all our customers.”  

The CEO also reviewed billing procedures for GBPC customers, showing charts comparing annual base rates to fuel surcharges as well as current fuel usage.  “I am very sympathetic to the concerns and comments we hear about our billings.  We are working to improve our generation but I cannot control world oil prices which affect every one of us.”   

MacDonald reiterated to members that GBPC makes no profit on fuel surcharges.  “This is a direct pass through cost that was set up by our regulator,” she said.  “It is a typical power company structure for billing, other companies in our portfolio use a similar structure like Nova Scotia Power and Barbados Light and Power.”  

She went on to show how the summer demand has increased fuel usage, most especially in July, but noted that August surcharges will be lower and this reduction would be seen in the new billings. MacDonald also gave an update on the Hurricane restoration and explained that some of the delayed outages and problems were due to continued copper theft.  “When trying to reenergize the Queens’s Cove area we discovered we had lost over 500 feet of copper, another set back created by thieves hurting our system and costing us $$$ in repairs.”