The Guyana Power and Light (GPL) said yesterday’s early morning, three-hour power outage was the result of a system shutdown in the 50 Hertz Demerara cycle.
The company said in a press release that a section of the 60 Hertz network was also affected. It said investigations of the protective relays on one of the two high voltage transmission lines that link the Garden of Eden operations with the Sophia sub-station indicate that there were fault conditions which resulted in a line trip. GPL said the line trip caused the automatic protection systems at Garden of Eden and Kingston to activate and shutdown.
GPL said linesmen from Garden of Eden searched the fault area on the transmission line in the East Bank back lands while the protection and instruments engineers at Sophia were conducting a diagnosis of the system protection mechanics. The company said technicians experienced some difficulties restarting the sets at the Kingston Wartsila plant but all of the circuits were eventually re-powered by 7am.
The company said its generation, transmission and distribution systems have undergone major overhauls and upgrading in recent months. All of the technical staff has been engaged in ensuring that the various systems are sufficiently viable and can deliver a consistent and stable supply of electricity especially to cater for the extra demand that Cricket World Cup would bring.
GPL has recently taken possession of a large shipment of assorted new components including larger capacity transformers and voltage regulators for the transmission and distribution networks. The components are being installed on the Demerara and Berbice inter-connected systems to better equip them to handle the additional demand for electricity expected over the coming months.
