Dear Editor,
On Wednesday, December 17, 2013, the GPL Public Relations Officer assured Essequibians that there will be no more blackouts for the season as maintenance had finished and the outrages experienced recently had been due to bad weather. The said day this announcement was published in Stabroek News, there were three blackouts ‒ the first one starting at 10.30 am and lasting until 1.00 pm followed by two others.
On Sunday, December, 22, about 8.30 am the blackout came back again and lasted until 8.30 pm in the night crippling the entire Essequibo Coast. This time there was no bad weather or heavy winds; businesses and petrol stations went down because the fuel pumps depend on electricity from GPL. It offers a crummy power supply and gets away with murder. GPL at Anna Regina has not made any strides; the company as a whole has many barriers to progress.
Perhaps the most serious impediment was the huge number of blackouts which we in Essequibo faced this year.While it is true that GPL and the Wartsila power plants have a full range of unprecedented challenges, GPL will not get far without the assistance of skilled and professional engineers. Every megawatt of power loss creates unstable economic growth, and Region Two depends on GPL’s ability to turn to sustainable and competitive energy.
The fact is, the power company has been producing less electricity than it has been producing for years. Not only has demand been soaring because of the many new housing schemes, but the region’s growing economic prosperity will take a lot more energy from every possible source. The energy industry needs to get more from existing fields while continuing to search for new reserves. GPL must continue to improve power efficiency and government needs to create energy policies that promote economically and environmentally sound development. Consumers must demand and be willing to pay for some of these solutions, while practising conservation on their own. Inaction is not an option. But if everyone works together, we can balance the equation. We’re taking some of the steps needed to get started, but we need GPL’s help to get the rest of the way.
Yours faithfully,
Mohamed Khan
