The power company yesterday revealed that almost half of the meters inspected last year had either been inaccessible, defective or tampered with, which contributed to its inability to meet its loss reduction target.
The Guyana Power and Light Company (GPL) Divisional Director for Loss Reduction Kumar Sharma said that 17,515 meters were inspected and 4,505 were inaccessible, 3,113 were defective and 778 meters had been tampered with.
Sharma was addressing a Public Utilities Commission (PUC) hearing to assess GPL’s 2012 Operating Standards and Performance Targets, where he explained why the company was not able to meet its loss reduction target. For the year 2012 GPL set its standard for losses at 28.65%. However, the company experienced 31.70% losses, 3% above the set standard. He said the above-standard loss was due to several technical and commercial issues. On the technical side, the company suffered 14.65% losses while suffering 17.05% losses in the commercial arena.
Speaking to commercial losses, Sharma explained these are influenced by the available funding, or lack thereof for investment in that area. Considering GPL’s “precarious” financial situation, he said, the company was unable to avoid such losses. He mentioned however, that several projects, including the construction of several substations and feeders will enable the company to cut its losses in this area.
He said meter readers continue to encounter hurdles in accessing persons’ premises to read their meters. The reasons for this range from them not being at home to security measures they have implemented. On the matter of tampered meters, he said the company has taken steps to combat this, with some success. He explained that for the year 2012, GPL carried out 123 raids in which 292 persons were arrested. Eleven have been convicted, while 281 matters are still pending. Sharma lamented the sloth with which the judicial system was moving in that area and cited it as one of the inhibitions to the settlement of these issues.
He said there was an engagement with the Dominican Republic, which has experienced higher loss levels and from that GPL has conceptualised ideas that may help in loss reduction. These measures include the utilisation of a pilot Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) software, which will enable the company to measure, collect and analyze energy usage and communicate with metering devices and a pilot secure distribution network. Both of these initiatives were made possible via funding from the Inter-American Development Bank.
In general, Sharma said, corruption, limited cash flow to invest in advanced technology, as well as the pervasive culture of theft across all levels of Guyanese society remain challenges to the attempts to cut losses.
According to GPL CEO Bharat Dindyal, a 1% loss to the company is equivalent to $340 million, and is therefore reason for the company to work untiringly towards the reduction of its losses.
Another instance where GPL failed to meet its projected standard was with its System Average Interruption Frequency Index (SAIFI). According to Elwin Marshall, Divisional Director of Operations, the company set out to have only 120 such interruptions, but ended up with 180. Marshall explained that the additional 60 outages occurred as a result of issues in West Demerara and in Berbice.
As it relates to West Demerara, he said the West Coast feeders service 90% of the customers. As such interruptions to this system affect a large section of the population and therefore created a spike in the numbers recorded, even though this system only contributes 21% of the figures used to determine SAIFI.
He assured the commission, however, that much of these disturbances would be remedied with the construction of 2 new substations, as well as support from Garden of Eden.
As regards Berbice, Marshall said a combination of the failure of the plant at Skeldon throughout 2012, as well as the late commissioning of equipment in various areas was to blame for the numbers recorded. He said while he was unable to say why GuySuCo was unable to meet the demand, the dated nature of some of GPL’s equipment, coupled with time needed for maintenance, was responsible for the outages.
The company was on the other hand able to meet its System Average Interruption Duration (SAID) standard of 180 hours. Dindyal explained that this was accomplished through the consolidation of crews from various areas efficiently tackling their various tasks.
Questioned about Guyana’s outages compared with the rest of the world, Dindyal said while some countries experience as little as 15-30 minutes of outage per year, this was linked to the amount of funding the company providing the services had to keep systems running.
In all of the other areas, the company met and even exceeded standards. In Voltage Regulation, GPL was able to resolve 1,453 of the 1,489 (98%) customer complaints about voltage interruptions within the required 60 days; it met the 70% ratio of available energy to installed energy.
With regard to meter reading where the company was expected to minimise bills recovery to 97% of non-maximum demand bills, based on actual billings, it achieved 95%. This was primarily because the instruments used to communicate with some of the meters used by GPL experienced failure, which was automatically recorded electronically and placed in the system. Dindyal said that once detected, replacements for the failed items were provided. Under the same standard, GPL pledged to produce 90% of non-maximum demand bills based on actual meter readings. However, it only achieved 85%. The company said that the deficit was a result of a change in the people’s patterns of being at home, which hindered its ability to gain access to and read meters. He said 90% of the cases of unsuccessful readings resulted from the inability to access the meter.
On the issuing of bills, Senior Divisional Director of Information Technology Renford Homer said that in most instances the company was able to issue non-maximum demand bills within eight days, two days short of its goal, while achieving its goal of issuing maximum demand bills within 7 days directly.
PUC Chairman Prem Persaud questioned these figures, citing complaints received from persons who claimed to have received their bills late. Homer insisted that he ensures that all bills are prepared by the required time and sent off to the Guyana Post Office Corporation (GPOC) whose responsibility it is to disseminate the bills. He said any delay may be as a result of the processes of the post office.
However, a representative of GPOC said the corporation should not be blamed for the late issuance of bills, since often it receive bills late from GPL.
The company admitted that there may be cases of late submission, but disregarded these as minimal, and therefore having no impact on the achieving of goals.
Dindyal explained that out of the one million-plus bills issued every year, less than one per cent of them are issued late.
On the final standard, average availability, the company said it was able to resolve 1,453 of 1,489 (98%) customer complaints within the required 60 days.
In his closing remarks, Persaud took the opportunity to raise two issues which he said seemed to have gone unaddressed. “If a meter is removed from a premises by the company and replaced, it takes around five to six months for the meter be recorded in the system,” he noted. “Six months later the customer is back billed for the entire amount and is required to pay cash. Something needs to be done about this system.”
He said the practice of GPL of not giving reasons for back billing must also be addressed.
Persaud said the performance indicators revealed at yesterday’s session will be considered and the results will be presented at the end of April.
