Belco’s management heads met Pembroke residents last night to discuss the company’s impact on its surroundings and the future of its operations, during an occasionally tense town hall meeting.

Wayne Caines, the Belco president, acknowledged the frustration of neighbours at fallout from its operations.

He assured dozens of attendees that the energy company was trying to remain responsibly engaged.

Mr Caines added: “This is a healthy exercise for us to sit in the room and hear where we have missed the mark and can do it better.

“What we did not want to do was to come and literally promise things that we cannot deliver.

“What we can deliver is to make the process more seamless and transparent.”

During the meeting at Belco’s Pembroke headquarters, its leadership addressed the impact of its operations on residents and measures to alleviate it.

Officials discussed plans to change its energy supply and the challenges of shifting to renewable energy.

Jeffrey Steynor, Belco’s director of energy transmission and business development, said the island would have to use a fuel that balanced cleanliness and cost effectiveness with strong energy output.

He explained that the plant’s integrated resource plan, updated in 2023, aimed to use a combination of renewable energies and liquefied natural gas by 2040.

However, when it came to renewable energy, Dr Steynor said that the IRP was still under review and had to be approved before the company could procure space to start that process.

He explained: “There’s been a challenge finding a lease for the wind farms. There has been a challenge with finding land on the island and there is a ministerial directive about not using green spaces.”

Dr Steynor said a balance had to be struck on “deploying solar and wind without negatively impacting the environment”.

Dan Cesari, the general manager of generation, said that Belco used an intermediate weight fuel, mixing inexpensive heavy fuel with cleaner light fuel.

However, the heavier fuel, when combined with improper combustion, produced black soot that could land on homes.

Mr Cesari added that, while some soot was unavoidable, steps had been made to reduce it, such as by reducing the burning of heavier fuel when winds were more likely to hit neighbours.

Mark Pacheco, the director of operational support services, added that his team offered compensation and remediation, from cleaning properties, vehicles and water tanks to monitoring and improving air quality.

The meeting heard that tests by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources with the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences had not found levels of pollutants expected to be associated with Belco.

Mr Pacheco said devices such as piston covers, dryer skids and carbon filters helped reduce soot and odours.

He acknowledged that the assurances did little to make people feel more comfortable.

Mr Pacheco said: “While my team has to follow the science, we come to your houses knowing that’s not enough.

“The only comfort that I can have is that this is what the science is saying.”

Mr Pacheco said that, although the company met compliance standards, Belco tried to compensate the community because it was “the right thing to do”.

Nadir Wade, the managing director of bulk generation, assured the crowd that his team and the company had expertise bolstered by experience working in several different countries.

Mr Wade, who grew up in the area, said he understood why many people were frustrated.

He added: “This team is very community-based. The concerns that the community has about Belco are not new concerns — the person who sat in this seat before me also had to deal with these concerns.

“Some of the neighbours have been dealing with some of these things for many years.

“What we’re saying is that we’re not operating any differently from any typical combustion plant.”

Jason Hayward, the Minister of Economy and Labour, and MP for Pembroke Central (Constituency 17) where the plant is located, welcomed the meeting.

However, he said that those who turned up reflected only a “fraction” of the neighbourhood, who were short on patience with the power company.

Mr Hayward said: “When I go to knock on doorsteps, I get the challenges and the health concerns.

“I think the ongoing engagement is extremely positive so you can hear first-hand the concerns of the residents, but also see that residents are actually committed to being part of the process.

“You should expect that residents continue to raise these concerns on an ongoing basis until things change.”

He added: “I would like to see more proactive engagement from the residents.

“I heard one resident say ‘I didn’t know my tank could be cleaned’.

“Everybody in this room should be clear of all the services provided by remediation.”

Some criticised the format of the meeting, in which attendees were invited to hand in written questions to the panel, for responses at the end.

One attendee said she would have preferred to know ahead of time to better research her questions. Another called the arrangement “rude” for not allowing attendees to voice their thoughts, believing it limited questions.

He stormed out while saying: “What you’re doing to this community is wrong.”

Mr Caines, standing by his decision, said the format was intended to maintain decorum while allowing for an engaging discussion.