The electricity supply in Berbice and Demerara, including in Georgetown, will be more reliable later this year with the construction of several substations and other system upgrades, Guyana Power and Light (GPL) CEO Bharat Dindyal said yesterday.
Equipment to boost GPL’s transmission and distribution network began arriving in the country yesterday at the GNIC wharf, where Dindyal, Prime Minister Samuel Hinds, GNIC’s CEO Clinton Williams and Laparkan’s Executive Glen Khan, were among officials on hand.
The network is being upgraded under the US$40M Infrastructure Development Project, which is being funded by the Government of Guyana with the support of a concessional loan provided by the Export – Import Bank of China.
It will see seven sub-stations being built in Georgetown and East and West Demerara, a 1.8 kilometre submarine cable-linkage of the Berbice and Demerara grids, the installation of 1 kilometre of 69 kilovolt transmission lines, creation of a fibre-optic network and the construction of a new state-of-the-art control centre, among other upgrades. Nine 69 kilovolt transformers are also due here between now and mid-February, by which time all of the supplies are projected to arrive.
While the project is expected to be completed between June and September 2013, Dindyal said that by late this year consumers would begin receiving improved electricity supply.
“The project is to deal extensively with our ability to deliver reliable power to consumers. It’s going to improve dramatically the quality of supply,” he said.
Dindyal explained that when the Vreed-en-Hoop substation is constructed and a submarine cable, which is part of the package that arrived yesterday, links the East and West Demerara power-grids, residents and businesses of the West Demerara would receive vastly improved electricity supply.
“Right away you are going to see the people on the West Coast are going to see a dramatic reduction in the frequency of outages because (currently) one fault on the West Coast and the whole of the West Coast goes,” he told reporters at the wharf. Currently, one fault on the lone feeder there causes the entire West Coast to endure prolonged power outages. A temporary facility has been installed at Leonora.
Dindyal further informed that GPL would save 10 percent in technical losses on the West Coast Demerara when the new equipment is installed and powered up.
Questioned about the durability of the Chinese made electrical equipment, Dindyal added that they were being built to meticulous North American and European standards. He further said that supervising engineers out of Canada will be testing the materials before they are installed, since the work is aimed at preparing the power company for electricity supply from the 150-megawatt Amaila Falls Hydropower station when it is constructed.
When the hydropower station begins supplying electricity, Dindyal said, there would be rate rebalancing and a special package aimed at getting back large electricity consumers in the business community on the power grid. Several large industrial consumers are self-generating because it is cheaper and more reliable to do so.
“The tariff issue could only be addressed during hydro. We are building reliability now to show the business community that we could be reliable and with the advent of hydropower the tariff issue will be reduced… and we are going to bring out a special tariff category for large users and that category, we are sure, will attract the large self-generators back,” he said.
