A fiery parliamentary budget debate has ignited sharp political tension in the Bahamas over the reliability of the nation’s power grid, after widespread weekend blackouts left thousands of residents without electricity and sparked accusations of government mismanagement from opposition lawmakers.
At the center of the conflict is Energy Minister JoBeth Coleby-Davis, who defended the preparedness of Bahamas Power and Light (BPL) to meet peak summer energy demand across the archipelago on Wednesday, pushing back against criticism from Long Island Member of Parliament Andre Rollins. Rollins, an opposition lawmaker, has accused the minister of intentionally misleading Parliament after days of outages that left Bahamians dealing with sweltering heat without power.
Coleby-Davis outlined detailed capacity projections for the country’s major population centers to counter the opposition’s claims. She told Parliament that BPL is projecting a peak summer demand of 300 megawatts (MW) for New Providence, the country’s most populous island, where the utility currently holds 340MW of installed generation capacity. That figure is set to rise to 385MW by the end of the current month. For Abaco, peak demand is forecast at 27MW, against an existing installed capacity of 36MW, while Eleuthera is expected to see a peak of 20.5MW against a current 24MW capacity that will grow to 26.5MW by the end of July and 29MW in August. Grand Bahama, meanwhile, is projected to hit a record peak demand of 60MW this summer, up from 56MW in 2023, and Coleby-Davis confirmed that sufficient generation capacity has been secured to meet that need.
The minister acknowledged growing public frustration over recent service interruptions, but emphasized that most current outages are a temporary side effect of BPL’s ongoing major infrastructure modernization project across New Providence. She explained that during construction work, circuits that normally split energy loads are forced to operate on single circuits, creating excess strain on the grid that increases the risk of unexpected outages. Comparing the project to a residential renovation, she noted that while careful planning can reduce customer inconvenience, it is impossible to eliminate all disruptions when rebuilding critical infrastructure while still maintaining active service.
Crews have been working around the clock to balance grid stability and urgent modernization work, she added, pointing out that BPL has no incentive to allow extended outages, as the company loses revenue every minute power is unavailable. Coleby-Davis also pushed back against claims that the current grid challenges are unique to the Bahamas, noting that multiple U.S. states and Canadian provinces are currently grappling with similar grid stress driven by extreme summer heat waves. While she stressed that this context does not excuse the Bahamas’ service issues, it demonstrates that the problem is a widespread challenge for jurisdictions navigating rising summer temperatures and aging energy infrastructure.
But Rollins rejected the minister’s explanation, arguing that the widespread outages prove the government is failing to deliver reliable energy. He highlighted that over the past weekend, some communities across New Providence remained without power for more than 24 hours, leaving residents stuck in dangerous heat. He also called attention to an “embarrassing” blackout that disrupted Cat Island’s annual rake and scrape cultural festival, arguing that the repeated service failures are a sign of regression, not progress, under the current government’s leadership. “We are regressing under the leadership of the member for Elizabeth,” Rollins told Parliament, drawing support from other opposition lawmakers.
The exchange comes as BPL proceeds with a multi-million dollar upgrade program intended to resolve longstanding grid reliability issues across the Bahamas. While the government frames the current disruptions as temporary growing pains on the path to a more stable energy system, the opposition has seized on public anger over the outages to ramp up pressure on the administration ahead of future political contests.