Skeldon Electricity Inc. (SEI), which is in charge of the GuySuCo Co-generation plant at Skeldon, is assuring Region Six residents that no major power outages are expected over the holiday season.
Media operatives in Berbice were invited last week to tour the co-generation plant, which is located in the compound of the Skeldon Estate, Corentyne. Present during the tour were one of the members of the Board of Directors, Gobin Harbhajan, Manager of the plant Outar Ramhit and Wartsila Site Manager Eldon Watson.
According to Harbhajan, the plant has the capacity to produce a total of 40 megawatts of electricity, including 10 megawatts from the Wartsila engines and a total of 30 megawatts from the two steam turbines. Harbhajan further explained that whenever the factory is not grinding and is under maintenance, there is still enough power to ensure a continual flow of electricity to the homes of Berbicians. “Them two turbines will be off from December 17 for maintenance, but still the Wartsila engines gone be able to supply 10 megawatts of power to the national grid,” Harbhajan said, while noting that supply is enough to ensure a “bright Christmas.”
He further stated that the board has been noticing sections of the media and representatives of the oppositions scaring citizens of Region Six into thinking they will suffer a dark Christmas by laying claims that there has been a recent issue with the co-generation plant. “We want to make it clear: there is no problem here at the co-gen plant,” he said. “It is 100% operational and all major maintenance has been completed on the Wartsila engines,” Harbhajan assured, while stressing that the plant would be supplying the national grid.
Meanwhile, he said there were three poles that recently fell at Number 48 Village and it took a while for Guyana Power and Light Inc (GPL) to replace them. According to Harbhajan, the duration of power outages due to unexpected incidents such as polls falling or transformers being damaged will be solely dependent on GPL’s abilities to rectify these issues. “If anything, you gon’ have distribution problems, not generation problems,” he said. “You see, we will be supplying power to the national grid and GPL then distributes it… If a pole falls, the length of time the area will get blackout is entirely up to how quickly GPL can get the poles and the transformers back up and running,” he added.
Meanwhile, Ramhit told Stabroek News that whenever unexpected incidents occur, they do not affect the plant’s ability to generate electricity; rather, they only prevent it from getting it to the national grid. “Even if we are knocked out as a result of a pole falling or a transformer going down, we can power up back in less than five minutes”, Ramhit said. “But we have to wait on GPL to let us know when we can send the power to the national grid because you see one of their staff might we working on the wires.” He noted that it takes on average between fifteen to forty five minutes to resupply the grid.
