Saturday blackout caused by contact between transmission lines – GPL

The Guyana Power and Light (GPL) outage on Saturday in Berbice and sections of Demerara was caused by contact between the 69Kv and 11Kv power lines.

According to a GPL press release, the 69Kv and 11Kv power lines came into contact with each other along the Eastern Highway in Sophia at approximately 5:44 pm on Saturday.

As a result of the time of the incident and the darkening skies, GPL said that repairs could only have been effected on Sunday.

However, customers were repowered at 6.26 pm on Saturday with repairs being done the following day. On Sunday at about 1 pm, GPL said the 69kv line was de-energized to enable repairs and reconfigure the 11kv line. As a consequence Central Georgetown customers were affected until 4pm when the last community was repowered.

Meanwhile GPL denied that the Alliance For Change’s Whim, Corentyne meeting on Sunday was deliberately hit by a blackout.

Responding to an INews report, GPL said it does not and will not practice deliberately interfering with the supply of electricity to sabotage any public gathering whether it be political or non-political. Further, GPL said what occurred in Berbice as a result of Saturday’s incident was beyond the company’s control and it extended its apologies to all who were affected by the weekend’s power outages.