By Marcelle Thomas
As Guyana Power and Light (GPL) consumers across the country continue to grapple with the nearly daily blackouts, government yesterday announced that it is close to sealing a two-year deal with Turkish power supply company – Karpowership – for 36 megawatts (MW) from a ship to help offset peak demand.
“We are focusing heavily on ensuring the current capacity we have is maximised. That involves bringing into production, some of the units that were bought and have not been brought online. They told me that hopefully by Saturday they should be able to get most of the equipment up and running again that will allow us to have the capacity based on peak demand,” Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo yesterday told a press conference.
“Simultaneously, a group of ministers… myself included… are working with a proposal that we have. Today, we are meeting with the company to supply emergency power. Hopefully, before the end of this week we can conclude this contract and have this vessel arrive in the country. And maybe two to three weeks later, that will see a significant injection of power into the grid in addition to what we have. We intend to contract this for two years until the gas-to-energy project is completed,” he added.
GPL’s Management Committee Head, Kesh Nandlall, said that the deal with company came through a prior procurement notice the company had advertised. “We had advertised and it is part of that plan we got that through…,” he explained when contacted by Stabroek News.
There was no such advertisement in the local press and it is unclear where exactly GPL advertised for expressions of interest.
According to Karpower-ship’s website, “The group started its energy investments in 1996, and today owns and operates a fleet of 36 Powerships with 6,000 MW installed capacity globally and an active construction pipeline. Karpowership is the owner, operator, and builder of the world’s only Powership [floating power plant] fleet and has an active role in medium to long-term investments, providing access to fast-track, affordable and reliable electricity.”
Jagdeo said that GPL has the Irfaan Ali administration being bombarded with complaints daily which they are trying their best to resolve. “GPL continues to give us headache. We are very much aware of the problems it is causing to many people in this country…” Jagdeo said while pointing out that government has been “inundated with complaints.”
“People’s lives are being disrupted because of this sector. We understand this from a policy- making perspective,” he added.
He announced that President Irfaan Ali has put together a policy-making group to focus on GPL, “where on a daily basis we are looking at what is happening in GPL…” he said.
But while he is optimistic that given that the utility company has given assurances that its consumers will see relief by tomorrow as most of its equipment will be up and running, he said that he would not swear for the utility company.
“I’m going on what GPL is saying because I don’t like putting my neck on a block for GPL and I don’t want to disappoint people, but this is what we’re told and they’re working in earnest to get that done,” the Vice President said.
“So, we’re hoping that within a matter of weeks, we will be able to bring the situation back to normalcy and then have extra capacity to address any failure of equipment like we have experienced recently,” he expressed.
Underlined
Jagdeo’s announcement yesterday underlined the failure of the government to come to grips with the power problem 44 months into the life of the administration. The transmission and distribution system remains in a parlous state with frequent interruptions and sometimes the total shutdown of the Demerara-Berbice Interconnected System. In addition, generators have broken down putting further pressure on the system. Last year, a promise that second-hand generators from Honduras would ease the power woes and be installed before Christmas failed to materialise. Some of the generators are still to be installed. Rather than moving in the direction of renewables, the government is spending more on carbon fuel generators which runs counter to its Low Carbon Development Strategy.
Earlier this month, President Ali lamented the deficit of technical personnel at GPL and disclosed that he was engaged with the utility to address this and other issues.
Speaking to the media on the sidelines of the swearing in of the members of the Constitutional Reform Commission, President Ali said that in light of the frequent power outages and generation shortfall, the company needs a full complement of technical support.
“There is a human resources gap; we have to get more engineers, more linesmen and technicians, we have to get those urgently because of the demand in the system. GPL had published vacancies for these positions but no one has come as yet, but I was to made to understand that they are putting out these vacancies again, and if we don’t get anyone then we will have to explore the option of getting technical help outside,” Ali told reporters.
It was the first time that the administration had raised the shortage of personnel as a dire need and it came after weeks of breakdowns across the power system.
While expressing his disappointment at the performance of the state power utility company, Ali acknowledged the myriad problems inherited, the exponential growth in demand, aged assets, and lack of redundancy in transmission.
He remarked, “The problem is multi-faceted. Firstly, we are dealing with issues of aged infrastructure [as] some of these generators are 30 years old, we are dealing with a situation of maintenance, for five years there was no maintenance so you have that to catch up with.”
“The other challenge we are dealing with is the exponential growth in the sector itself as to what is happening in the country,” the President continued. “This year alone in addition to the shortfall which we have in generating capacity, we are projecting another energy demand of 35 megawatts so that will take total demand by the end of this year to 220 megawatts that is on the system right now,” Ali told reporters.
“Currently we are supposed to be generating 165 megawatts, but there are tremendous difficulties in terms of meeting that demand due to trucks and vehicles damaging the networks because of the construction and accidents taking place,” he lamented.
“All of these issues are being dealt with in a bundle, [and] as you know, we also have challenges in terms of power transmission. We are working towards finding the appropriate mechanisms to address this issue so that we can meet the energy demand.”
PPP/C governments have been in charge for 27 of the last 32 years.
The Head of State said that the government has already engaged UK Export Finance (UKEF) to explore financing options for the transmission which will be extended to Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Upper Berbice).
According to Ali, he is in discussions with the organisation as it relates to financing an upgrade plan on transmission lines in the region, as those lines currently are encountering challenges.
When pressed by the media for a ballpark figure to facilitate works on these transmission lines, Ali said he would not be able to disclose the actual amount but based on approximation it will be costly.
Additionally, the President told reporters that he asked the utility company to consider options to provide bridging energy to meet the demand while waiting for the completion of the Wales Gas-to-Energy Project.
According to Ali, the Dominican Republic may likely aid the country in terms of technical support, if the state electricity company is unsuccessful in getting locals to do the job.
Former Minister of Public Works, David Patterson, has strongly criticised President Ali for attributing the current power supply problems being experienced by GPL to the former APNU+AFC government under which he held the ministerial portfolio for power.
Patterson asserted that although GPL was operating on a much smaller budget during the coalition’s time in office, it was in a better state. He acknowledged that there were challenges at GPL when his government left office, but those challenges were slated to be rectified.
According to the former Minister, “The status of our power sector remains a matter of national concern, I would readily admit that by June 2020, there were several outstanding challenges still to be resolved, however, the company was heading in the right direction with a very limited budget. With Guyana’s increased resources and the importance of this sector to our national development, one would have expected some increased momentum in fixing GPLs problems – in contrast, significant progress has all been reversed in recent years.”
The Opposition member said although the Ali-led administration is aware of the challenges facing the power utility company, it has neglected the organisation and has directed its attention to the highly touted Wales Gas-to-Energy project. As such, he rejected the government’s claim that the coalition had abandoned the power company. The Shadow Minister of Public Works said that GPL under the coalition administration procured brand-new generating sets which increased the generating capacity of the company by 50 per cent.
Last week, government said that 14 of the 17 used generators it purchased for US$27 million from Honduras have been installed. These generators were supposed to have been in place since last year but were delayed by a series of problems including shipping. Shipping delays were also cited as the cause for the generating sets’ current use of diesel fuel instead of Bunker C heavy fuel oil, as they arrived ahead of their HFO [heavy fuel oil] tanks.
Nandlall, told this newspaper yesterday that the HFO tanks have arrived but are now under construction. He noted that the generating sets are operating at their dispatch capacity until the tanks are completed when they will switch to HFO and produce at the 1.7 MW maximum capacity instead of the current 1.2 MW.
