Efforts to have at least two of the five newly installed generators at the Guyana Power and Light’s Garden of Eden facility back online by yesterday did not succeed and Chief Executive Officer Bharrat Dindyal said they are currently reassembling one.
In a brief update yesterday on the activities there, he told Stabroek News that engineers have not been able to pinpoint the root cause of the generators malfunctioning. Engineers on site are still working to arrive at that cause.
He added that as they push to have two of the five generators back online, they are also awaiting confirmation that all the necessary spare parts are available to have both up and running by tomorrow.
On Monday, Stabroek News reported that more Wärtsilä engineers arrived in the country with the aim of resolving the issue. The team of Technical Service engineers will work along with the engineers who arrived earlier to diagnose the issue.
However works were halted to some extent as some team members tested positive for COVID-19 on Friday last.
The engineers who arrived in the country on Saturday will continue working from where the previous team left off. These engineers, Stabroek News was told, have a deeper understanding of how the engines operate and should be able to determine the cause of the generators malfunctioning.
According to Dindyal since the engines have been down they have either replaced or serviced parts that were affected by contaminated lube oil. All five of the generators were affected by the lube oil.
When the engines are recalibrated and are back online the expatriate engineers will monitor their performance. This will allow the engineers to test their theories and determine the root cause of the problem.
Wärtsilä, a Finnish company is currently bound to an operate and maintenance agreement with GPL which was clinched in 2019. As such the agreement will cover fixing problems with the engines which are still under warranty with the support of GPL engineers. GPL has reverted to its old generators to meet the electricity demand.
Two Fridays ago, fearing a massive explosion after the detection of fuel in the exhaust of a generator, GPL shut down its Garden of Eden power plant on the East Bank of Demerara, resulting in the loss of 46.5 MWs. As a consequence, load shedding started that night.
Dindyal had stressed that the decision was made “out of an abundance of caution.”
The CEO explained that about a month ago the company’s technicians and engineers at the facility noticed the elevated temperatures on all of the generators, causing them to suspect something was amiss. He stated that the temperatures were about 2°C above normal. Having consulted with engineers of the Finnish manufacturer, Dindyal said GPL made a decision to send samples of the lube oil for analysis in Houston, Texas. He stated that the results of the analysis showed that viscosity more than doubled and additives to neutralize acid in the lube oil were depleted by 50% to 60%.
