17% of power outages last year caused by road accidents – GPL

Management of the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) has revealed that approximately 17 percent of the power outages experienced by the Demerara-Berbice Interconnected System (DBIS) in 2024 was as a result of vehicular accidents that damaged utility infrastructure.

This information was revealed on Thursday when several senior management officials from the power company presented the organisation’s 2024 Operating Standards and Performance Targets (OSPTs) during its annual review by the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) at Herdmanston Lodge in Georgetown. The GPL presentation team was led by Executive Management Committee Head Kesh Nandall.

Nandlall explained that GPL has begun taking steps to recuperate costs from the liable individuals.

“We have invoiced a few people to the extent of $28 million for instances of network damages, but it’s a little bit more than that. We do charge it through the police for the other small incidents, and the police do take action. We have a team that works along with the police to take the necessary actions,” Nandlall told the Commission.

According to statistics provided by the Divisional Director of Transmission and Distribution, Shaun Hamlet, when compared to 2023, GPL saw an increase in interruptions, or power outages, both in the frequency and in the duration of interruptions last year.

For 2024, the company had set a System Average Interruption Frequency Index (SAIFI) target of 85 outages, but instead ended up exceeding this by 44.7 percent, realising a total of 123.

This is a 28.125 percent increase over the 96 outages that the company experienced in 2023, after setting the target for that year at 90. The SAIFI is a standard used to calculate the average number of outages which consumers experienced during the reporting year, with the goal being to keep it as low as possible.

However, outside of vehicular accidents, the majority of the outages for last year were due to the company’s struggles with power generation.

“That was mainly due to the period in which generation was unavailable due to the growing demand,” Hamlet explained.

In other factors contributing to the outages, Hamlet explained that approximately 49 percent of the outages were as a result of external factors, mainly construction and farming activities. Additionally, most of the outages occurred in Region 4 (Demerara-Mahaica), the country’s most densely populated district.