Accident shuts down power system

An accident early this morning shut down the Demerara Berbice Interconnected System, the Guyana Power and Light said today.

A GPL press release follows:

On February 25, 2015 at approximately 01:48 hrs a vehicular collision within the vicinity of Avenue of the Republic and North Road caused Infrastructural damage to the network within that vicinity. The extent of the impact of vehicle when it came into contact with the pole caused two high voltage transmission lines to short circuit resulting in the tripping of engines at Kingston (58MW) and Vreed-en-Hoop (26MW) Power Plants with a total loss of 84MW. The loss of these engines resulted in a total shutdown in the Demerara and Berbice Interconnected System.

Repowering efforts commenced in Demerara at 01:58hrs with the last affected community in Berbice being repowered at 03:00hrs.

Remedial work to the network was performed at sunrise today which included reconnecting secondary mains and guide wires and the reinforcement of poles.

Preceding years have witnessed similar incidences where careless use of the roadways have resulted in minor and major damages to our network and immense inconveniences; in light of this mornings’ incidence we renew our call for prudence when traversing the roadways.