Efforts have been intensified to ensure that citizens receive satisfactory and quality electricity distribution during the holiday season, Acting Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Guyana Power and Light Incorporated (GPL), Renford Homer has said.
“We have a generation capacity of approximately 130 megawatts and expect a peak demand of 115 or 116 megawatts, not exceeding 117 megawatts. This gives us a reserve of approximately 13 megawatts,” Homer was quoted as saying in a Department of Public Information (DPI) release.
The Kingston machine is out for maintenance and is expected to be in operation shortly, according to the DPI statement. Homer noted that it has a capacity of 7.9 megawatts and when operational will boost the company’s generation during the holiday season and even further into 2018 to meet the growing demand.
According to the DPI media release, Homer also provided clarification on the frequent spate of blackouts towards the end of July and in the middle of September, explaining that this was as a result of GPL losing some of its bigger engines through mechanical failure. These machines had to be taken out of service, and in one instance, an alternator on a 6.9 megawatts engine had to be removed and shipped abroad for repairs. There were also minor failures at the Garden of Eden location and the largest of the three engines at the Skeldon Energy Incorporated was also out of service for planned maintenance during that period.
These issues resulted in GPL losing close to 20 megawatts which significantly impacted available and reserved capacity, thus pushing the power entity into a regime of load shedding schedules, Homer explained to the DPI.
