While many businesses on Block Island are in a wait-and-see mode, the Block Island Power Company has been busy coming up with a contingency plan to weather the storm of the coronavirus pandemic.
During the Block Island Utility District’s Board of Commissioners meeting on Saturday, May 16 (held remotely by Zoom) BIPCo President Jeffery Wright laid out various options for the commissioners to take.
Wright has been monitoring the island’s electrical usage on a daily basis, and while he reported that March and April were down only slightly from last year, which he attributed mainly to a warm winter, May, to date, has seen a drop of 16.5 percent.
Whether things will pick up is the greatest unknown. Commissioner Everett Shorey said that on the residential side, “people are not cancelling their reservations — yet.”
Chair Barbara MacMullan noted that restrictions on travel from out of state were still in place, requiring visitors to self-quarantine for 14 days. “Unless the governor lifts the restrictions,” she said, “by no means is this market sure to hold up.”
Then there are the marinas, which are among the biggest users of electricity in the summer. Currently boaters from out of state
