The community of Matthews Ridge can breathe a collective sigh of relief now that their electricity woes have been resolved
Two damaged relays on the generator sets that power Matthews Ridge were identified as the culprits behind the months of power outages in the community, mechanic David Krishna who worked on the project told Stabroek News on Monday.
Krishna told Stabroek News that two wires were incorrectly connected resulting in the relays not being able to power the electrical circuit to turn on the generator. Power was eventually restored to the community on Monday afternoon.
The issue was troubleshooted by Krishna and an engineer from the Port Kaituma Power Company.
According to Krishna, because the two relays were damaged, the power plant circuit was only receiving 8.37 volts of power when it required 12 volts to be fully functional.
At the moment, the generators are connected to back up batteries, and the relays, which have been sourced from the Port Kaituma Power Company, will be replaced by engineers.
On Monday night Regional Chairman Brentnol Ashley confirmed to Stabroek News that after almost five months, residents were finally able to have electricity again. He said he is awaiting a report from the technical team on the works carried out.
Stabroek News understands that after much discussion on Sunday with Minister of Public Works Juan Edghill, the technical team was dispatched to assist with the troubleshooting as the team which was earlier deployed was unable to solve the issue.
Ashley along with his vice-chairman, Sarah Browne, reported to Minister of Public Works Juan Edghill that Matthews Ridge had been without electricity since March. After learning of this, the Minister assured Ashley and Browne that action would be taken to resolve the matter as soon as possible.
Ashley disclosed that the two generator sets that power the community have been down since March 28. The first generator, he said, was donated to the community in 2004 while the other was donated prior to the 2015 elections.
He added that when the generators stopped working, the relevant authorities were approached on numerous occasions for assistance to have them fixed. However, they were told that because of the coronavirus pandemic nothing could be done. Despite the constant pleading by residents, they were also told that the mechanic was reluctant to travel to the community to fix the generators.
Ashley noted that the lack of electricity had been very frustrating for the residents of Matthews Ridge especially for those who do not have their own generators or solar panels.
He stated that when he visited Matthews Ridge on Tuesday last, the mechanic had already arrived and had attempted to start the generators but was unable to find the problem.
