BICO sees business boost from power cuts

As businesses tied to the national electric grid have been disrupted by two days of power outages, ice cream maker and cold store BICO Limited said it has seen an uptick in business over the past 24 hours, touting its independent power supply.

BICO Executive Director Edwin Thirlwell says his Harbour Road cold store expects more business with growing uncertainty surrounding the reliability of the power supply.

BICO has spent close to $1 million in over 10,000 square feet of a 380 kilowatt hybrid solar system back in 2014, which provides just under 20 per cent of the power needed for the approximately three-acre Harbour Road plant.

Edwin Thirlwell

There are two generators on the property, one 800 kW and a 1,000 kW.

Thirlwell said since the power outage on Monday, several businesses have been coming forward with items to be stored in the Habour Cold Store, which is able to keep perishable items for commercial entities.

He declared: “If I dare say this, we have been impacted favourably because whenever people have a problem and the power is gone off we have it.

“So we have had people from hotels and people who have perishables who now don’t know what to do with it and we have said bring it down and we will store it for you. In fact, we have actually seen an upturn in business because that is what we do for a living.”

Over the last two days, farmers, hoteliers and an “assortment” of other business people have been bringing items for cold storage, he said.

But Thirlwell said with the busy Christmas period just over four weeks away, he was expecting even more business at the approximately one million cubic feet facility.

He said: “It is a run-up to Christmas so it [the black outs] couldn’t have come at a worse time because any time from now on we will having Christmas trees arriving, we have got hams, we have got all the Christmas related food and everything coming in so from now on we will see where we will kind of stuck it in the aisle.”

Thirlwell said the two busiest periods for the cold store  were around Christmas and a lead up to Crop Over.

“So it goes up and down. In actual fact, it is a very consistent business, and of course it is a consistent service we offer,” he said.

And Thirwell cautioned other businesses not to rely solely on Barbados Light & Power (BL&P) for their electricity supply.

He said: “I think other people, hotels, supermarkets and sizeable businesses, may have to reflect on the fact that perhaps the power supply might not be as reliable as it has been in the past.

“I think people are taking for granted that Light & Power has always been there, very seldom went off.

“I think in the last few years I think it is safe to say that it has become a little less reliable… and it is now Emera and they probably have different values and different goals and of course, they haven’t got the only show in town now, they have to contend with the people generating their own [electricity] using photovoltaic.

“It is possibly not as vibrant a sector as it used to be when they had the exclusive facility. So I don’t know what is going to happen.

“I am sure the people in the Ministry of Energy and the Government and Light and Power are all thinking right now ‘what are we going to do to see our way through all of this?’

“The problem is that Light and Power seem to be saying that the plant is aging and needs replacing, but they seem to be hinting that they can’t afford to do that with a projection for the future.”

Before installing photovoltaic systems five years ago, BICO had a total annual operation cost of about $7 million, with between $1.3 million and $1.5 million of that going towards energy.

The company has been shaving off about $20,000 off its energy bill since the installation of the renewable energy systems. marlonmadden@barbadostoday.bb