Over the last few days, the spate of blackouts across the country has brought back memories of daily loadshedding of decades ago and the power company has no detailed explanation for what is occurring or a schedule.
At around 9.30 pm yesterday, the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) posted on its Facebook page the following explanation after customers kept complaining.
“At approximately 07:56 hrs this morning, a sudden loss of approximately 46.5 Megawatts (MW) of generation at the Garden of Eden Power Plant caused a cascading effect on the other generating stations, resulting in a disruption of service to customers in Demerara and Berbice.
Restoration commenced immediately and power was restored to most customers at approximately 12:46 hrs. Regrettably, some customers remained out of power until full restoration at approximately 17:12 hrs.
GPL apologizes for the inconvenience caused.
Over three years after the PPP/C took the reins of office more questions are being raised as to why it has not been able to get on top of power generation failures and shortfalls. A number of container generators have been procured from Honduras and are expected to enable adequate power for Christmas.
Over the last two days, citizens from all across the country have complained about outages and slated the GPL management.
Customers in sections of Georgetown, East Coast and East Bank Demerara experienced interruption in power supply on Monday due to a reported increase in demand that has exceeded GPL’s current generation capacity.
The power company said that to ensure the continued stability of the grid and prevent a complete shutdown, it was necessary to take some feeders offline.
Customers in Berbice, were advised that should the demand exceed the electricity company’s power generation capacity, interruptions could follow.
There was no word yesterday from the Prime Minister’s office or any other senior government official on what is transpiring at GPL. The utility company has been criticised over failed management and other issues.
University students and lecturers complained that these sporadic disruptions have resulted to significant delays in work schedules.
Notably those who conducted online meetings, group presentations or webinars felt the brunt of the power disruption by the company.
One businessman who owns a printery said that the constant power outages have damaged his uninterrupted power supply (UPS).
“Because of this I had to replace another one (UPS) because I cannot afford for my business to be disrupted”, he lamented
While it is synonymous for power outages to intensify when coming closer to the Christmas season, many citizens contended that these power disruptions have worsened. Against this background, Stabroek News contacted GPL’s public relations office yesterday for a comment on the subject but the person who responded said that she could not comment unless the information is relayed via the company operations manager.
President Irfaan Ali recently asserted that under the APNU+AFC coalition government, there was a lack of maintenance on the transmission lines coupled with little or no investment in baseload generation capacity which are the main reasons for the blackouts currently being experienced.
He said if the 2013 Amaila Falls Hydropower project had materialized, Guyana’s power generation capacity would have been supplemented by 165 megawatts which may have placed the country in a better position.
But former Public Works Minister David Patterson said that “If the Guyana Power and Light Company (GPL) had stuck to a proposed plan that would have seen it add between 20 to 25 megawatts of power annually to the grid, it would not be in the “dilemma” it is in and rushing to buy reconditioned generator sets to meet increased demands”.
He contended that “knowing that the country was on a trajectory to decrease the use of heavy fuels, the generator sets would have been dual powered to allow for the changeover, instead of continuing with HFO usage, as will be the case with the 17 used generators GPL said it was procuring from Honduras”.
“They used a power generating study we had left to justify the gas to power project. However, that same study showed that we needed 20MW to 25MW per annum since 2018, to keep with normal average demand. As a good government they should have put measures in place to have at least 15 to 20 [MW] per year, up to this point and to keep up with the demand“, he further said.
In September, GPL had called for the conservation of electricity in the face of a big spike in demand linked to cooling needs because of the increasingly high temperatures.
In an advertisement in the Stabroek News, the company had recorded a peak demand of 182 megawatts (MW) compared to 154 MW for the corresponding period last year.
It said that the rise in temperature has led to the heightened use of air conditioning units and fans and in some instances, these are left switched on in homes and businesses that are unoccupied.
GPL observed that the situation was not unique to Guyana as Trinidad and Tobago had registered its highest ever electricity consumption in August.
The company has procured 17 reconditioned containerized generator sets from Honduras which will produce 28.9 Megawatts (MW) of power and they will be installed in time for Christmas.
