Government is continuing to upgrade the electrical frame work on units throughout the island.
This assurance was given last Friday as Minister of Housing, Lands and Maintenance, Dwight Sutherland, gave an update of the electrical work being carried out at Pleasant Hall, St. Matthias, Christ Church, following a tour of blocks in the area.
The project, is part of the Sale of Terrace Units Program 2003 and the 20 Year Free Transfer Program 2008, which will see the units being upgraded to the current code before the official handover to residents.
Minister Sutherland stated: “We have units that were built before Hurricane Janet, some were built in the 1950s, 4,400 units to be exact, for us to truly transfer these units in the 20 Year Free Transfer Program 2008 and the Sale of the Terrace Units to individual home owners without upgrading the electrical framework. We’ll be doing an injustice to the citizens of this country. That is why we undertook this project from 2019 and we budgeted BDS $19.9 million to upgrade 2,687 units across Barbados.”
He acknowledged that modern amenities like washers, dryers, air condition units and microwaves had added to the load of these extremely dated electrical systems which led to overloading of the existing electrical circuits, resulting in numerous cases of tripping of circuit breakers, main breakers and in some units caused fire.
Mr. Sutherland indicated that the upgrades would enhance the load bearing of the panels: “We have increased the load capacity three fold, from 4.8 kilowatts maximum capacity to 18.4 kilowatts. In addition, the new electrical framework would go from single phase two-wire to single phase three-wire to carry 230 volts, prior to that it was only 115 volts. And the electrical panel has increased in size from two, four or eight circuits to 24 circuits; that is an increase of almost 300 percent,” the Housing Minister stated.
Government to date has completed 1892, or 70 per cent of unit upgrades at a cost of approximately. BDS $14,397,490.71 dollars and is in the process of transitioning to the new system by the Barbados Light & Power Company Ltd. Additionally, another 234 are at varying stages of upgrade.