Electricity woes continued yesterday, since even as technicians were attempting to power a four-megawatt generating set on Sunday at Garden of Eden, it shut down, the power company said in a press release.
This caused the repairs not to be effected and works continued yesterday. Another component on the set, the potential transformer, had malfunctioned early last week but was replaced.
According to the release from the Guyana Power and Light Inc (GPL), Sunday’s incident created a cascading effect that temporarily affected all generating stations in the Demerara interconnected 50 and 60 hertz systems. The release said the incident occurred at 14:40 hrs but less than two hours later, all circuits in Demerara were repowered.
Further, the release disclosed that on Saturday because of the unavailability of the same four-megawatt set, consumers in Campbellville, Bel Air Park and its environs, Sophia, Alexander Village and Industrial Site all experienced brief interruptions with each lasting for less that 45 minutes.
Meanwhile, according to GPL its engineers were able to stabilize the generation and distribution systems in Berbice while doing a significant amount of corrective work at Canefield and the Number 53 Village stations as was promised. Power supply was restored to an acceptable level, it added.
The release stated that the company’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Bharat Dindyal said the situation in Berbice remained somewhat “fragile while the technicians and engineers continue to correct minor electrical and mechanical problems still existing in the mobile Caterpillar generators.”
The CEO appealed to consumers in Berbice to be patient while reiterating that every possible avenue was being exploited to keep both the generation and distribution facilities stable while the company awaits the much-anticipated boost of 10 megawatts of power from the new Skeldon Sugar Modernisation Plant (SSMP). This should be activated by next month, the release said.
Dindyal said there was still much work to be done in both Demerara and Berbice before the Christmas holidays, when the demand for electricity usually rises. He said the works are going to interrupt power supply to certain areas, but the company will continue to advice customers of the scheduled in its weekly newspaper advertisement.
He pointed out that the annual rise in demand for additional power at this time of the year is already beginning to manifest as the increased demand recorded in October was a new record for the company and it was expected to rise further in November.
Meanwhile, the Guyana Water Incorporated (GWI) yesterday noted that GPL’s outages impact on its ability to operate its pumps in the affected areas.
According to GWI as a consequence, it will be unable to supply water to those areas for the duration of the power outages.
“Although some areas may receive power supply at a domestic level this is not sufficient for operations of electrical pumps.
The power requirements for out industrial pumps are different and due to the very sensitive nature of our equipment, we must have stable voltage. Our pumps sometimes are also affected by this factor,” GWI said.
The water company urged customers to be supportive during this period and desist from breaking mains and tampering with service connections to access water as such acts would impede the process of restoring water to their communities.
The company said that more resources would have to be allocated to locating and repairing leaks even as the company is utilising all avenues to have the problem rectified quickly so that service can sustained.
