The Guyana Power and Light (GPL) Inc. believes it delivered “commendable” service during the Christmas season, with minimum interruption or disruptions to consumers.
See full statement below:
Georgetwon, Guyana, Tuesday, January 14, 2020: For the second consecutive year, the Guyana Power and Light Incorporated (GPL) has successfully maintained a stable supply of electricity during the Christmas season.
An unprecedented amount of five (5) shutdowns were experienced in the year 2019, whereas there were a total of 12 shutdowns in 2018, and 25 in 2017. The aim is to completely eliminate these events, even though this will be a challenge until existing generation, Transmission and Distribution (T&D) systems are upgraded.
The improvement in performance has resulted in customers in Demerara, Berbice, Anna Regina, Bartica, Leguan and Wakenaam only experiencing minimal service interruptions, which were largely attributed to localised faults.
Despite being plagued with an aged Transmission and Distribution (T&D) network, the utility company is diligently conducting planned maintenance activities on the network, while having an increased number of emergency response crews on standby to address localised faults.
These planned maintenance activities were executed by GPL’s workers across the country, who worked the miles putting in extra hours, beyond their normal working time, to complete the tasks.
Between December 18th to December 31, 2019, the Demerara-Berbice Interconnected System (DBIS) had a total of 144.7 Megawatts available generation capacity, while the Power Plants at Anna Regina, Bartica, Leguan, and Wakenaam, together had a total of 17.18 Megawatts.
These megawatts were available due to GPL’s efforts to efficiently service aged generation plants, some of which have semi-retired.
Unfortunately, accidents during the holiday season resulted in damage to some of GPL’s poles.
Those accidents coupled with a few transformers failures resulted in minor service disruptions in some communities.
Amidst this setback, GPL field staff swiftly expedited work to restore electricity.
Moving forward, the power company, intends to continue to ensure there is sufficient and available capacity to meet its demand, while at the same time improving the quality of its supply to all customers.
Chief Executive Officer, GPL, Albert Gordon explained that planned maintenance for the upkeep of units as well as other operational works will continue for the new year as the company continues its journey towards becoming a world class utility.
He added that the power company is also pursuing a number developmental and expansion plans, which once implemented, will see the systems operating throughout the year with little chance of service interruptions.
