As the global price for fuel skyrockets, the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) appealed to consumers to conserve electricity even as it contemplates introducing a system in which customers will pay in advance for their power consumption.
The company is the midst of a crisis, which President Bharrat Jagdeo last week said was owing to its deteriorating finances, escalating fuel price and its failure to bring this to the attention of the government.
Yesterday the company hosted a media breakfast and shortly afterwards launched an Energy Conservation Campaign at which it emphasized that conservation was important now more than ever before.
Chief Executive Officer Bharrat Dindyal who opened the media interaction yesterday underscored the impact that the escalating fuel prices have had on the company.
He pointed to the dire need for conservation especially in a country like Guyana. “We have 136,000 customers and if each person switches off something that they are not using we could see a reduction in the amount of energy consumption,” he implored.
He pointed out that in July 2005, the last time the power company raised tariffs, fuel was a little over US$30 per barrel, and at that time some $760 million was expended each month on fuel. Now the company is expending more that $1.6 billion on fuel each month, using 100,000 gallons of fuel each day. The company has not ruled out the option of adjusting tariffs.
Dindyal said that from around 5.30 pm to 6 pm each day, consumption soared. He said the recent distribution of energy saving bulbs should have seen a reduction in the amount of energy used.
“But the impact we expected to see we didn’t because people had the bulbs yes, but they figured that because they were energy saving bulbs they kept them on for long hours and so the reduction in consumption was not really significant,” he said.
He outlined a number of strategies, among them a sustained public relations campaign to educate consumers how they could contribute to the reduction in energy consumption.
He said the company also plans to hold talks at schools and make children aware of how they could assist their parents.
Dindyal said the company also planned to call in the large electricity users to educate them on how they could reduce consumption but still get the same out of their power supply.
“We want to sit with them to show them how they could manage the power they use and see the significant benefits, so all categories of consumers will be educated on how they could achieve conservation in different ways,” he said.
Questioned about the estimation of consumers’ bills, Dindyal made it clear that this was only done when for some reason, meter readers were unable to access consumers’ meters for readings.
“We don’t have the same customer being continually estimated and the billing system is what is used as the basis for an estimate. Our meter readers leave cards for some of those persons whose meters are inaccessible for them to read the meters and fill out the form but less than five per cent of persons return the cards,” Finance Director Aeshwar Deonarine explained.
It is against this background that Dindyal revealed that the company is strongly considering the introduction of the pre-paid meter technology in a “big way”.
“This will solve all the problems with meter reading