According to a release from the company, the Potaro Road feeder breaker failed around 04:30hrs on Sunday which resulted in blackout, but diligent efforts by staff members saw power being restored to the town on Sunday evening.
“The damage was limited to the circuit breaker, control and DC supply,” the release said.
The release said personnel from GPL’s Engineering Services Unit are still in Bartica and they were expected to resume work yesterday afternoon to replace cables for the control and DC circuits. This work, which was expected to commence at 1 pm yesterday, saw the community being without electricity for some hours but the company said power would have been restored at 5 pm yesterday while works would continue today.
It was stated that staff on duty at the time the breaker failed noticed smoke emanating from the cubicle and had shut the plant down as a precaution.
It was stated that the circuit breaker is the air blast type and therefore there is no material available that can cause an explosion. Stabroek News had reported that there was a small explosion based on reports from resident.
“Typically when there is a failure, the insulating material burns slowly but the breaker has to be extracted from the cubicle before any firefighting effort can be effective,” the release said.
The company assured its Bartica consumers that every action would be taken to prevent a recurrence.
