Dear Editor,
The location of the gas-to-shore power plant should be conceptualized within a holistic framework of a new energy frontier where it should be coterminous with a deep water port, light and heavy manufacturing industries and an Export Processing Zone.
This Gas Turbine Power Plant should be the central power station bank for the Berbice-Demerara Inter-connected Grid with a capacity of approximately 300MW which would adequately supply all our present and projected national energy consumption.
This type of reliable and affordable power should be in a cluster with the other industries such as a small refinery, LPG plant (cooking gas), fertilizer plant, agro industries, plastics, polymers, chemical, pharmaceuticals and a host of other assembly and light manufacturing plants. The rationale being that industries that will require uninterrupted power supply by generating their own power will be in great position to pipe the natural gas from the shore-to-gas plant that will be in close proximity and utilize it to run their plant.
A deep water port close by will enhance the movement of materials for manufacturing as well as export.
A cost-benefit analysis of supplying natural gas to existing power stations at Kingston, Vreed-en-Hoop, Garden of Eden and Canefield should be examined as against the cost of retrofitting their limited percentage of available engines that could be converted to work with natural gas. It might well be more economical to continue working these power stations on HFO and diesel.
Siting of the shore-to-gas power plant in the most feasible location can be our harbinger to place Guyana in the realm of a modern industrial nation.
Yours faithfully,
Reggie Bhagwandin
