And while BEL is facing failure - today's capacity crisis could have been foretold from last year.
In fact, 10 years ago - the regulatory - which is the PUC - knew this need for additional capacity was coming.
Jules Vasquez reports on the failed request for power of 2014:
This was 2014, the pre-bidding meeting that the Public Utilities Commission convened for 44 applicants who had responded to the requests for power. There was optimism and goodwill in the room, sustainable energy sources said. But ten years later, that optimism has dimmed. Replaced by these grim expressions worn by BEL senior managers today, as the company is in the middle of a full blown capacity crisis, one for which there are no quick fixes.
CEO Mencias says that the seeds of today's failure were planted ten years ago.
John Mencias, CEO - BEL
"So that means that over the ten years from 2013 to 2022 only eight megawatts of capacity was added to the system. And that really is the story of how we have arrived at the capacity shortages that we have and why 2013 is important is an important year because 2013 is a year where the PUC, in conjunction with BEL, put out what is called request for PRO requests for proposals for 75 megawatts of generation and capacity."
"So you can see from that time everyone was aware of the need for this additional capacity and only 8 megawatts was added. And as a result, as I said, we have ended up in a capacity shortage situation."
And the shortage situation is being addressed by short term fixes.
"Immediately. What we have in place is that we are upgrading or gas turbine, as I said at mile 8, and that is expected to come back on line by early next week. It was originally at 19 megawatts. It's being upgraded to 30 megawatts. So next week 30 megawatts of additional capacity is coming on line. Once that comes on line, we will be able to bridge the generation shortage that we are experiencing right now."
But this is an expensive and unsustainable fix.
John Mencias, CEO - BEL
"Just the cost of the diesel of running the machines on diesel per kilowatt hour ranges between $0.45 to about $0.60, sometimes higher. You want to know what is the price of electricity, right? Pretax. The average price is about $0.40. So when we are running those gas turbines, we're already losing money."
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