Economic cost of power outage significant

Economist Jeremy Stephen says the economic cost of islandwide power outages is significant.

In fact, he estimates today’s power outage alone has cost the island in excess of $6 million, using an estimate of approximately a million dollars an hour.

He says most of the island’s productive capacity during the course of a typical work day is invariably connected to electricity in some way, from communication to water.

Mr. Stephen adds while most of the island’s larger businesses might have been shielded form the impact of the outage thanks to their installation of photovoltaic systems, small and medium sized businesses may not have been so fortunate.

About The Author