The Guyana Power and Light (GPL) today said that at approximately 6:41 am yesterday, four of its Transmission Lines tripped: L2 and L4 that connect the Golden Grove and Sophia Substations, L5 – the Kingston to Sophia Substations and L17 – the Good Hope to Colombia Substations. These trips, GPL said, led to a sudden and significant loss of generation, destabilizing the Demerara-Berbice Interconnected System (DBIS) and resulting in a total shutdown.
GPL said that Remedial work began immediately to restore power. At approximately 7:03 am incremental restoration started and continued until most areas in Demerara and Berbice were repowered at approximately 9.01 am except for customers west of Success, North Sophia to Industry and Bel Air. Those customers were repowered at approximately 11:45 am following the replacement of the two faulty Current Transformers at the Sophia Substation.
Investigations are ongoing to determine the primary cause of the shutdown and customers will be updated when these investigations are completed, GPL said.
Despite assurances from GPL that its work on substations would reduce incidents on the network, shutdowns of the DBIS continue to occur regularly.