PHILIPSBURG--Districts still have been experiencing load-shedding over the past days and utilities company GEBE has been updating the public as far as possible by posting tentative load-shedding schedules to its Facebook page.
Multiple posts were made Friday, Saturday and Monday, and GEBE announced on Monday that a technical problem was affecting an electricity production unit at the power plant in Cay Bay.
A tentative schedule released on Monday after the announcement included Cole Bay, Almond Grove, Airport Boulevard, Saunders, Cay Hill A.J.C. Brouwer Road and part of L.B. Scott Road. An earlier release that day also included Kim Sha and Pelican. Some of the same districts had been included for the tentative schedule on previous days.
As previously reported, GEBE has been having issues caused by ageing machinery and deferred maintenance. and is aiming to have the issues resolved in the coming week. Two generators are down and older, less-efficient generators are being put to use in the meantime.
GEBE is trying to keep load-shedding to a minimum, but it is a challenge to predict load-shedding schedules. Also, options become more limited when priority areas such as commercial areas, St. Maarten Medical Center, Princess Juliana International Airport, the school districts during school hours, and the company’s water production and pumping facilities are taken into consideration.
Hotels have been approached to use their own generators for now, and the company said this had helped a great deal in terms of preventing the need for more load-shedding.
