Bartica businessmen say they have already begun to suffer substantial losses due to the severe power shortages the area has been experiencing over the last three days.

Several Bartica residents contacted Stabroek News to express their frustration over the situation. They also said several visits to the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) office in Bartica have provided no satisfactory answers.

Richard Francois, GPL’s assistant public relations officer, yesterday told this newspaper that the frequent power outages started on Tuesday. He said the outages were a result of the constant tripping of one of the Caterpillar generators sets at the Bartica Power Station. Francois said between Tuesday and early yesterday morning the system tripped nine times. He said too engineers observed that when a particularly intense load, from another utility company, was added to the grid the generation sets trip. The other company is located in the same area.

Francois said that in order to correct the situation, on Tuesday evening the north feeder had to be isolated or de-energized. He said the system tripped again early yesterday morning and upon investigation, a flash on a transformer bank located near the arcade was observed and this resulted in one of the pot head connectors burning.

That problem was rectified and power was restored, Francois said, adding that GPL has advised the utility company to temporarily stop self generating and to check their internal system before returning to the grid. He told this newspaper that residents are now getting a full supply of power from GPL. However, up to late yesterday afternoon residents reported that the power had not returned. They said that they had power for about three hours yesterday afternoon then the area was again de-energised.

One businessman said the area had been receiving two to three hours of electricity per day, which is inadequate. He also said that he observed that the section of the township where GPL’s engineers live receive power at nights. “I find it very suspicious, why can’t that section get it one night and the other section get it another night?” the man questioned.

Residents also pointed out that no electricity means no water since GPL powers the Guyana Water Inc system. “This is getting very frustrating and we hope that there will be some solving of the problem soon,” another resident said.