The Board of Directors of the Guyana Power and Light Inc. (GPL) will on Monday meet to decide on purchasing power from the Giftland Mall, which is expected to bring relief to consumers who have recently been subjected to continuous blackouts due to damaged submarine cables.
This was disclosed yesterday by Director General of the Ministry of the Presidency Joseph Harmon, who also said the proposal to purchase two additional generators will also be considered during the meeting.
Following damage to two of the company’s submarine cables, there have been frequent power cuts as a result of the shortfall in supply and load shedding activities. .
The power company subsequently commenced discussions with Giftland and Banks DIH regarding the potentially purchasing power.
During a post-Cabinet press briefing yesterday, Harmon said that Cabinet was provided with an update on the corrective measures that could or are being executed to bring relief to the citizens who are affected.
Engaging the cable manufacturers to inspect and or effect repairs in the shortest possible time and the return of two Caterpillar units from Anna Regina to the Demerara/Berbice Interconnected System were proposed, he said.
He said, too, that among the other measures being considered are the power purchase agreements with the Giftland Mall for up to 5 Megawatts (MWs) and with Banks DIH for up to 5 MWs during peak hours. He informed that the power purchase agreement with the Mall was finalised and is to be submitted to the GPL Board for approval on Monday. Discussions have commenced with Banks, however, excess capacity may not be available at this time, he noted.
GPL’s Chief Executive Officer Albert Gordon had touched on the issue during a press conference earlier this month. He informed that the two companies, which use Heavy Fuel Oil to power generators for their own operations, have a substantial amount of capacity.
“For Banks, I think they have installed just about 10 MW but they normally use most of their power in the day and during our evening peak, they normally have an excess. So we asked them very early [and] they weren’t as enthusiastic but the discussions continued and up to recently there were some technical issues with the connection but also they have started running their generators during the period we would want power,” Gordon explained.
With regards to Giftland, Gordon related that GPL has been engaging the company and so far they have negotiated terms, there were constraints that they were working through with Minister of Public Infrastructure David Patterson.
“There are some legal constraints in the Act and it speaks to an [Independent Power Producer] being above 10 MW and what you can buy from them and at what price. There are some legal constraints, which the government is assisting us to work through but there is a price issue as well. The law requires us, and even without the law we wouldn’t want to buy power that is too expensive, but buying power even if it is a little more expensive is better than having power cuts,” Gordon said.
Harmon explained yesterday that there are regulations governing the purchasing of power and it is for this reason that the matter will engage the attention of the Board of Directors of GPL. “They understand what the law is and under what conditions they have to work to be able to facilitate the movement of power from a private entity to GPL,” he said.
According to Harmon, included in the other measures is a proposal for two Caterpillar units to be purchased from Macorp and the transferal of approximately 6 MW of power from the Vreed-en-Hoop power plant directly to a feed at Kingston via a 13.8 kV submarine cable, which was successfully installed across the river and was tested and energised on Wednesday, June 12th.
He said that this cable is now supplying about 5 MW of power from Vreed-en-Hoop to the Eastern Demerara Berbice Interconnected System.
“Cabinet agreed thereafter that the public should be informed about the damage done to the submarine cable as well as the power purchase agreements with Giftland and Banks…”, he said, before adding that based on the initiatives implemented this far, load shedding activity has been significantly reduced.
He pointed out that notwithstanding the notices which are still used as a precaution, there was very little load shedding on June 12th and none since June 13th. He later explained that the West Bank and the West Coast of Demerara are still experiencing “some problems,” resulting from the movement of power from Vreed-en-Hoop. While conceding that this situation will result in unscheduled blackouts, he assured that this “is not going to last a long time.”
