What does the next kilowatt-hour cost in a New Providence house? The answer depends on how many kilowatt-hours the house has already used that month. Bahamas Power and Light prices residential electricity in steps, so a large, fully air-conditioned home pays more for each unit than a modest one, on top of using more units.
For anyone comparing homes on the island this fall, that step pricing meets a date. The fuel hedge behind this year's rates covers calendar 2026 only. A buyer who closes in the coming months will get their first full-year bills under whatever arrangement replaces it.
Three Prices Stacked On One Bill
BPL's current residential base tariff comes from its 2024 Equity Rate Adjustment. It applies to accounts invoiced after July 1, 2024, and stays in place until a tariff review is carried out. The published schedule sets the base energy rate by monthly usage:
- 0 to 200 kWh at 0 cents
- 201 to 800 kWh at 11.95 cents
- Above 800 kWh at 14.95 cents
That is only the smaller part of the bill. The fuel charge splits at the same 800 kWh line. BPL divides its fuel spend for the billing period by total units consumed. It bills the first 800 units at 2.5 cents below that average and every unit above 800 at 1.5 cents above it. In August 2026, The Tribune reported the resulting fuel charges as 17.4 cents per kWh below 800 kWh and 21.4 cents above it.
Combined, the energy and fuel lines work out roughly as follows at those August rates:
| Monthly usage band | Base rate | Fuel charge | Combined per kWh |
|---|---|---|---|
| First 200 kWh | 0¢ | 17.4¢ | 17.4¢ |
| 201 to 800 kWh | 11.95¢ | 17.4¢ | 29.35¢ |
| Above 800 kWh | 14.95¢ | 21.4¢ | 36.35¢ |
Why The 800 Line Matters More In Some Houses
Two homes on the same road can pay very different prices for the same unit of power. Take a month at 700 kWh. Using the energy and fuel lines alone, that comes to about $181.55. Now take a month at 2,000 kWh, a level easily reached by a larger home cooling several bedrooms through a Nassau summer. That comes to about $647.10. The second home uses a little under three times the power and pays more than three and a half times as much. These figures are illustrative arithmetic from the published rates. They leave out VAT and any other line items on an actual bill.
VAT adds another threshold on top. BPL says it charges VAT only on electricity bills over $400. In the example above, the 700 kWh month stays well under that line and the 2,000 kWh month sits well over it.
This changes how a listing reads. Square footage, ceiling height, glazing, a pool pump, a second refrigerator in the cabana and a guest wing left cooled while empty all push a home's usage further above 800 kWh. Every unit up there costs about 36 cents before tax at the August 2026 rates. Two houses at similar asking prices can carry very different running costs, and none of it shows in the brochure.
Solar Is Worth More Inside The House Than On The Wire
The same pricing shapes rooftop solar. BPL's renewable energy page says energy a residential system sends to the grid is credited monthly "at the prevailing fuel charge rate." The base energy rate is not part of that credit. A kilowatt-hour the panels make and the house uses straight away replaces a unit that could cost up to 36.35 cents. A kilowatt-hour exported at midday comes back as a credit worth only the fuel portion.
BPL's page also covers what happens during an outage:
Standard grid-tied systems don't offer backup; discuss battery storage options with your installer.
A home with panels and no battery can still go dark when the grid does. When a listing mentions solar, ask whether the house has storage, how much of its own output it uses, and whether the system holds a BPL approval certificate.
Residential systems go through BPL's Small-Scale Renewable Generation program. The renewable page lists the steps: an application form, an account in good standing, an electrical schematic and inverter manual, a signed interconnection agreement, an application fee, and finally an SSRG approval certificate. The interconnection requirements document linked from that page dates from 2020. It limits a New Providence residential system to 5 kW plus the customer's average demand, with an absolute ceiling of 100 kW. It also sets a non-refundable $50 application fee and a 21-day BPL response to a complete application. Ministry of Works permits and an inspection are still needed before interconnection. URCA's 2026 plan says a planned update of the renewable energy rules will not go ahead this year, so the existing framework stays in place for now.
The December Date Behind This Year's Fuel Charge
This year's fuel charge rests on a hedge. The Tribune reported that in December 2025, BPL locked in about 2.5 million barrels of fuel oil at $65 per barrel. That covers calendar year 2026. The Inter-American Development Bank forecasts the hedge will save $43 million over the year. The same IDB analysis, as The Tribune reported it, puts fuel at about 74 percent of total consumer electricity bills in The Bahamas.
Eyewitness News reported the IDB's warning on what happens next:
If Brent crude oil prices remain above US$65, the full cost adjustment will hit in 2027 unless the hedge is renewed and widened.
The IDB called expiry without a successor strategy "the most significant medium-term risk" to the country. On October 15, The Tribune reported that Energy Minister Jobeth Coleby-Davis described government plans for combined fuel procurement across BPL, Grand Bahama Power and Water and Sewerage. Those plans include longer-term diesel, heavy fuel oil and LNG supply arrangements. The same report says the minister described a proposed national fuel charge per kWh. No savings estimate or implementation timetable was given, and she cautioned that pooling costs alone would not reduce total fuel spending.
Fuel makes up most of the bill and is priced at its highest above 800 kWh. If the fuel cost rises, homes that spend most of their month above that line will feel it most.
LNG Arrives In Stages
The longer-term fix is natural gas, and it is coming in stages. The Nassau Guardian reported the groundbreaking of New Providence Gas's LNG receiving facility at Clifton Pier, a FOCOL and Shell partnership. FOCOL Holdings CEO Dexter Adderley said the company's 90 megawatts of gas turbines there would be the first to receive LNG once the terminal opens in the first quarter of 2027. Asked whether BPL's own generators would switch at the same time, he said, "I'm not sure about BPL." He expects the Blue Hills assets to receive LNG in the fourth quarter of 2027, after the pipeline is complete.
In his August 17 national address, Prime Minister Philip Davis said the first phase of LNG would come online in 2026, with 190 MW of gas-fired capacity by late 2027. That timing is earlier than the operator's first-quarter 2027 date for the terminal. The gap between the hedge ending in December and LNG reaching BPL's own plants is the period buyers closing now will be paying through.
Reliability Work Under A Separate Operator
The poles, wires and substations on New Providence are now run by Bahamas Grid Company. BPL keeps customer service and billing. In September, Bahamas Grid CEO Dareo McKenzie told The Tribune that the company had cut the backlog of underground cable faults it inherited when it took over on April 20 from about 50 to 27. He said the focus was shifting to ageing distribution equipment, and he acknowledged the repeated and extended outages customers had faced in recent months. Later that month, The Tribune reported plans to infrared-scan the entire network within weeks. Supply can also be interrupted at the generation end. On September 4, three Clifton Pier generators tripped and protective systems took other circuits offline for about 71 minutes before service was restored, according to The Tribune.
For a buyer, a generator, battery storage and an automatic transfer switch are part of what the house costs to run. Treat them as more than optional extras.
What To Request Before You Make An Offer
- Twelve months of BPL bills, so you can see how many summer and winter months the house spends above 800 kWh.
- Which months the bills went over $400, where VAT starts to apply.
- For a home with solar, the SSRG approval certificate, the inverter make and whether there is battery storage.
- For a home with a generator, its size, fuel type, service records and whether it switches over automatically.
- A list of the large loads, such as pool pumps, cooling for detached rooms and water systems, to estimate how much usage could be reduced.
This is general information about published utility rules and reporting, not legal, tax or financial advice. Please confirm the details of a specific property with BPL, a licensed electrician and your own advisors.
If you are comparing New Providence homes and want the running costs reviewed alongside the asking price, Colibri Bahamas can help you request and read a property's utility history before you commit. Schedule a consultation and we will go through it with you.
