GPL in 9.6MW boost for holidays

Guyana Power and light Inc. (GPL) has announced the arrival of six  1.6 Megawatt (MW) Caterpillar Units to help boost power supply for the Christmas season.

In a press release GPL said three of the units will be installed at GPL’s Sophia, Georgetown location, while the other three will be placed at GPL’s Onverwagt (West Berbice) office.

An additional four units, with total capacity of 6.4MW, have been placed on standby by the supplier in case there is a failure of any of the six units purchased by GPL, the release said.

The company said the arrival of the units is in keeping with its  commitment to boost generation capacity and provide customers in the Demerara-Berbice Interconnected System with reliable electricity.

The six power modules and associated transformers were procured at a cost of $475,422,029 and $80,886,430 respectively, the release added.

Meanwhile, Minister within the Ministry of Public Works, Deodat Indar during an interview with the Department of Public Information said that when the PPP/C Government took office they recognised weaknesses in the company’s operations and instituted two main measures.

“One was the Giftland Power Producing Agreement, which was for five megawatts and that five megawatts is already incorporated in GPL grid, and the other was the purchase of 10 megawatts of power generating sets from MACORP,” Minister Indar said.

He added, “we bought six sets and each one of them is 1.6 megawatts but in the arrangements when we bought the sets, we got four additional sets as backup and each one of these sets carry generating capacity of 1.6 megawatts.”

Minister Indar further stated that the sets have already been dispatched to their locations. The Sophia, Canefield and Onverwagt sub-stations will each receive three gensets and the remainder will go to the Anna Regina sub-station.

The delivery of the sets is timely as the Minister said chief among the purpose at this time is to provide extra power during the Christmas holiday.

“The demand will go about 124.5 megawatts so we wanted to make sure that we have the baseline capacity to generate the power.”

Minister Indar noted that since the new gensets use light fuels these would be more costly than the company’s Wartsila sets which use heavier fuel. However, a management plan is in place.

“These are smaller sets so they will work with light fuel oil, so we have to manage the load on a daily basis to know when we will put them in. […] GPL has that plan where they will kick in the generator on or off based on how they see the demand across the country,” the Minister said.

Additionally, the Minister relayed that GPL has been successful in securing an overseas contractor to repair the severed submarine cable from Vreed-en-Hoop to Kingston.

The team is expected to be in Guyana by next week to begin works and reintegrate the 7 megawatts back into the system.