-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”.