COLE BAY—GEBE representatives attended the SHTA General Managers’ Retreat on Friday, November 13 to update Hotel Managers on the challenges that are being faced in the GEBE operations on St. Maarten, Saba and Statia as well as projects and strategic plans that address these challenges on the short, medium and long term.
GEBE Managing Director, William Brooks, was originally scheduled to give the presentation but was out due to illness. In his absence, Steve Duzanson, Commercial Manager, and Giselle Dirckx-Williams, Corporate Communications Officer, outlined the current and future challenges in the company as well as the solutions being worked on in the power supply, to upgrade customer service and to create clarity on the fuel clause.
GEBE has been facing electricity production challenges with a tight operating capacity that has led to numerous outages from July 2009 to date. “The shortage in the generation capacity was identified in early 2007, which resulted in two 11.3 MW generators being ordered by Brooks” he explained. The installation of the new generators is 5 months ahead of schedule and is more than 90% completed. The new engines are projected to be commissioned and brought online in the end of December 2009. The new generators are radiator cooled which will make them more reliable especially during rough seas and hurricanes since they will no longer depend on sea water for cooling.
Although the two new generators will stabilize the production capacity on the medium term, GEBE still faces the ongoing challenge of keeping the electricity supply ahead of the demand on the island, especially with the construction boom and a large number of projects still in the pipeline. A third generator could therefore be ordered for as early as 2011 and retiring and replacing of older engines, some as old as 40 years, that are smaller and less efficient, is also being planned.
The high cost of electricity as a result of the volatile oil price was also discussed. A tariff study that will realign the cost of electricity and fuel was completed and presented to stakeholders. The proposed tariff structure would update the base rate which has not changed since the electricity concession was given in 1960, and make the fuel clause a pass through as is the case with many electricity companies around the world. However, the realignment would only marginally decrease the cost of electricity.
Attendees were therefore cautioned that as long as the island continued to use oil to generate power, the cost for electricity would be volatile until energy production was diversified with such projects as solid waste to energy and renewable energies such as solar, geothermal and wind energies. Any new investments in alternative energy will be evaluated on environmental benefits as well as economic impacts.
GEBE launched its online services in 2007 with E-Billing and has been expanding its E-services to include the new GEBE website which was launched in March 2009 www.nvgebe.com, E-receipts and e-mail notices and continued its efforts to improve the customer experience. “Going into 2010, GEBE will add SMS-services to reach clients even quicker with outage information and power updates” she added.
The information was well received by the hotel managers. They also indicated that they were very happy GEBE‘s presence at the Retreat and more public awareness is needed on the production capacity and what is being done by the company to upgrade the power plant. Suggestions made by the group to GEBE included improving the outage information, to creating more clarity on the fuel clause as well as updating the GEBE website to make the information provided during the presentation readily available to the rest of the public.