From Governor Sarah Tucker, Premier Joseph Farrell And Deputy Premier Dr Samuel Joseph
A meeting of the Central Coordination Group was held on Tuesday morning to review the current status of the electricity and water challenges that have been experienced on Montserrat.
The power is holding relatively stable with a few local outages. Parts are on order for both Generator #3 and Generator #6, which we expect on island in the next couple of weeks. Once these Generators have been fixed this will bring some resilience to the power supply on island.
With funding of up to £1.3 million provided by the UK Government, as part of the Critical Equipment funding, and a number of high speed generators identified and viewed, Mr Kendall Lee, Manager of Montserrat Utilities Limited (MUL), has travelled to Miami to assess the suitability of the units that are available and will be providing a report shortly.
Once the findings are assessed, a decision will be made on placing an order. This additional generator is expected to be installed and operational by the end of September 2023. Until all of these aspects are completed, there is still a risk of power outages.
In relation to the water challenges recently experienced, we are back up to capacity. A review has been completed of the generator back up capacity, this will be assessed as part of overall power delivery.
Working with the UK Government, a task force will be set up, drawing on expertise across utilities, to complete a detailed assessment of needs and develop an implementation plan with the objective of long-term resilience for Power, Water and Sewerage.
The Central Coordination Group will continue to meet on a weekly basis to retain momentum until we are confident of the ability to deliver all utilities on a sustainable basis.
This work does not replace or influence ongoing work on green energy.