With no clues on the root cause of the mechanical issues with the Guyana Power and Light’s Garden of Eden generators, management of GPL is awaiting a report from Wärtsilä, to advise on the way forward.
Chief Executive Officer, Bharrat Dindyal, on Monday explained that they are hopeful the report will include a diagnosis of the issues, and possibly offer insights as to what led to the malfunctioning of the generators at the Garden of Eden plant. The report is expected to be delivered to the utility company this week. Currently, four of the five engines are back online and functioning.
Currently, Dindyal said that they are awaiting a replacement part from the company for the fifth engine. That part was already shipped and should arrive in the country within the next week. Dindyal explained further that all suspicions they had, have been removed before adding “We are keen to understand what went wrong.” He added that results from some of the tests conducted are still being analyzed.
The utility company’s CEO had previously noted that there is no issue with the fuel or lube oil as the same type and grade has been procured to be used across the country. “Since [19]93 we have been using the Shell brand of lube oil and grade at the generators across the country at Kingston, Sophia, Berbice… As a matter of fact some years ago we tried to use the Texaco brand but we had to immediately revert to Shell… so it is not a fuel or oil issue,” he explained.
Additionally, Dindyal said that an executive team from the Finland-based manufacturer of the generators, Wärtsilä, has been in constant contact with the engineers here working along with them to identify the issue. On January 14, GPL announced that it had shut down the plant as there were fears of a massive explosion after the detection of fuel in the exhaust of a generator. Dindyal had explained that 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%.
