-spared a penalty
Amid widespread public concerns about its continued failings and rolling blackouts, the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) was on Monday rapped by the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) over its 2023 performance but as has become the norm it was spared what could have been a heavy penalty.
In its first order of 2024 following its March 14th, 2024 public hearing on GPL’s performance for 2023, the PUC signalled “its concern that GPL has failed to meet most of its operating standards and performance targets for the period under review. Particularly disconcerting is the failure to meet the customer interruptions standard. Whilst the Commission acknowledges the reasons provided by the Company for this failure, it strongly recommends that the Company reexamines its planning and forecasting methods. It is worthy of note that although the Company’s system losses increased minimally by 0.19% from 24.92% in 2022 to 25.11% in 2023, this translates to a significant financial loss”.
The PUC urged the Company to carry out an urgent reassessment of the system losses programmes. It said that this review is crucial to minimize future losses, especially given the rising demand for electricity in the country.
“Another concern of the Commission is the Company’s constant excuse regarding its failure to achieve maximum demand meter reading targets due to handheld device failures, despite an increase in the installation of advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) meters.
“This needs to be urgently corrected. The Commission however, applauds GPL’s initiative to launch a pilot project which will give information on the voltage being supplied to its customers. As this pilot project progresses across its distribution networks, the Commission is optimistic that the company will be in a position to correct the voltage fluctuations experienced by consumers in many of the areas under its jurisdiction”, the PUC said.
After careful deliberation, notwithstanding GPL’s failure to achieve standards as set for Customer Interruptions, Meter Reading, Accounts Payable, System Losses and Average Availability, the PUC said that it will refrain from imposing a penalty at this time.
Where the Commission finds that GPL has failed to meet its standards it could impose penalties upon the Company in an amount not to exceed 25% of the total value of the dividends payable to GPL’s shareholder(s) which would be the Government of Guyana .
“However, the Commission directs that GPL submits quarterly reports to the Commission on the pilot project as it relates to the Voltage Regulation standard and its rollout of its advance metering infrastructure (AMI) meters with detailed reports on successes, lessons learnt and deficiencies where applicable”, it said.
There are eight standards and targets which are subject to review by the Commission, those are namely: 1. Customer interruptions 2. Voltage Regulation . 3. Meter Reading 4. Issuing of Bills 5. Accounts Payable 6. Accounts Receivable 7. System Losses 8. Average Availability.
In the matter of System Average Interruption Frequency Index (SAIFI), the intent of this standard is to limit the average number of outages which consumers experienced during the reporting year. For the year 2023, the target was set at 90 outages. GPL during its presentation informed the Commission that the average number of outages experienced by consumers in the year 2023 was 96.
In relation to System Average Interruption Duration Index (SAIDI), the intent of this standard is to limit the duration of outages experienced by consumers during the year.
“For the year 2023, the target set was 95 hours, however, the average duration of outages experienced by consumers during the year was 103 hours. Both targets under customer interruptions were therefore not met. The Company in its presentation indicated that its failure to attain the targets set for SAIFI and SAIDI was as a result of feeder trips, transmission line trips, planned maintenance and the shortfall in generation which the Company experienced in the latter part of 2023”, the PUC said in its order.
Stable voltages
Under the voltage regulation standard, GPL is obligated to maintain stable voltages within plus or minus five percent of the nominal voltage and plus or minus 10% following system disturbances. Since the inception of the hearings, the PUC said that the Company has maintained that it would be difficult to monitor and report on the voltage supplied to each customer. As a temporary solution, GPL had proposed an alternative method of assessing compliance with this standard which entailed measuring the percentage of voltage complaints resolved within a 30-day period and utilizing this data as an indicator of compliance.
“At the 2023 hearing the Company informed the public that it embarked upon a pilot project using the ITRON bridge type meters to monitor the voltage supplied to consumers. The Company indicated that its Goodhope F2 Feeder which is located on the East Coast of Demerara was selected for the first phase of this project, since it has one of the longest distribution circuits and that this feeder has a large number of consumers connected to it. The Company informed the Commission that this is the ideal feeder for the preliminary testing of voltage received by consumers and also reported that the voltages on the feeder were well within the prescribed limits”, the PUC reported.
In terms of system losses, the PUC noted that this standard sets system losses which include technical and non-technical losses at 24.1% of dispatched power for the year 2023. For the reporting period, system losses were recorded at 25.11% of dispatched power. This standard was not met. GPL in its presentation noted that whilst it had not achieved the target set by the Company over the last three years (2021 to 2023) it recorded a reduction in system losses of 1.36%. This reduction was as a result of the replacement of 43,128 meters with the advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) meters and the continuous upgrade of its network. Further, the Company noted that the recorded system losses for the year 2023 was directly attributable to the increase in electricity generated during the year required to sustain the surge in electricity demand.
For the year 2023, GPL was required to achieve an average generation availability of 85%. The Company reported that the average generation availability was 83%. This standard was not met. The Company in its presentation reported that the unavailability of generators was due to faulty crankshaft bearings, delayed arrival of spare parts for repairs, forced outages in generating plants due to transformer trips and failed turbochargers. These all negatively impacted upon the achievement of this target.
The Chair of the PUC is Dela Britton.
GPL is presently trying to shore up generation with generators from Honduras and a power ship that is due to arrive from Cuba.
