While the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) ended 2024 on a high note, having been able to finally bring an end to the persistent power outages in time for the holiday season, the company nevertheless had to wrestle with losses during last year, including over 12 per cent commercial losses.
During Prime Minister, Ret’d Brigadier Mark Phillip’s end-of-year press conference on Monday, questions were raised about GPL’s losses for 2024. The company, according to Phillip who has oversight responsibility for energy, registered 25 per cent of total losses, half of which were commercial losses that included electricity thefts.
“With regards to your question, some 25 per cent was the figure given as the total loss… 12 per cent of that is commercial loss. However, we continue with our project of changing out meters. Because with the modern meters, that is costly but will also help reduce the losses.”
“And of course, we have already started spending some money and we intend in 2025, some US$750 million will be spent in building out and modernising the whole transmission system, which in itself will contribute to a reduction in line loss,” the Prime Minister explained.
In addition, the Minister within the Public Works Ministry, Deodat Indar further detailed what these losses mean for GPL, as well as the steps being taken to address them. According to him, there were both technical and commercial losses that had to be dealt with.
“We have around 25 per cent of total loss. That splits between technical and commercial losses. The commercial losses, that’s the term they use for when people jook the wire, run a wire from the pole to the house… when one man got the meter and they split it to the entire community. That is what we call commercial losses. That is around 12, 12.5 per cent.”
“How do you fix that? You try to ensure that you have very good monitoring systems. Inspection systems. As Prime Minister mentioned, we’re changing out a lot of the defective and old meters, that don’t spin no matter how much current you burning. Those are the kind of things we’re (doing),” Indar explained.
Based on the GPL’s Development and Expansion Programme 2022-2026, one of the major ways they plan to combat electricity theft is through a smart grid system. This would allow GPL officials to be able to remotely identify illegal connections and disconnect them remotely
The application of a smart grid essentially means that all control, communication and switching mechanisms within the Demerara-Berbice Interconnected System (DBIS) would be automated, controlled (locally and remotely), and supervised by a modern supervisory control and data acquisition – energy management system (SCADA-EMS).
It has been reported that there is currently no control system in place to provide such a timely response to avoid a cascaded system shutdown. As such, in the event of system disturbance, plant operators are forced to react by adjusting generator units manually, in order to stabilise the power system.
Currently, GPL is generating more than enough to meet peak demand, having closed 2024 generating over 265 megawatts (MW) of electricity with the addition of the second power ship. The arrival of this second power ship came after a contract signing last year between GPL and the Joint Venture of Turkish-based Karpowership Global DMCC and Qatar-based UCC Energy International LLC JV, to charter a second power ship with a total installed capacity of 75 MW for two years.
In the first phase, the power ship dispatched 60 MW to the grid in approximately six weeks followed by an additional 15 MW, once works are completed on an additional transmission line. The contract requires GPL to pay the Joint Venture 8.52 US cents per Kilowatt-hour (kWh) as a monthly charter fee for the new power ship.
It also requires a monthly operation and maintenance fee of 0.98 US cents per kWh, based on electricity generated. Under the contract, GPL is also responsible for providing Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO) for the operation of the ship’s generators.
