The 46.5-megawatt power plant at Garden of Eden, East Bank Demerara, has been scheduled for completion by June 30, alleviating the power woes currently facing a large fraction of the country.
Prime Minister Mark Phillips
This announcement was made after Prime Minister, Retired Brigadier Mark Phillips and Minister within the Public Works Ministry, Deodat Indar were updated on the construction works at the dual-fuel plant at the Power Generation Complex.
During the meeting, the Government officials were briefed on the progress of the project. Prime Minister Phillips indicated that while there were some delays with COVID-19 restrictions and inclement weather conditions, “the project will be completed by June 30th and will make a great impact on the reliability of electricity in the Demerara-Berbice Interconnected System”.
The US$50 million power plant will house the five Wartsila generators. Prime Minister Phillips had flagged GPL’s main issue in the transmission and distribution system, which undergoes daily repairs.
Nevertheless, the PM posited that with this 46MW capacity added to the system, some of these woes will be alleviated.
Government has been working to build the Guyana Power and Light’s capacity to generate power using renewable energy (natural gas), with the ongoing construction of the 46.5-megawatt power plant. When completed and commissioned, the engines will be capable of using both heavy fuel oil (HFO) and the natural gas being piped in from offshore Guyana.
Giftland Group had started to supply the GPL grid with electricity in October 2020. It has a system that produces 6.7 megawatts of electricity, five megawatts of which is HFO [heavy fuel oil] fuelled. However, it only uses 1.6 megawatts during prime operations at the Mall.
As such, Government tapped into the excess power supply to boost the capacity of the GPL grid, which currently has a generating capacity of 155 megawatts.
After starting with a good run, the Giftland Mall’s supply was disrupted after a surge in power blew its turbocharger. While the incident occurred last December, Chairman Roy Beepat had said the system is expected to be back up in two months’ time.
According to the agreement between Government and Giftland, an average of US$46,000 is paid per month for power. This would translate to some $9.9 million per month to Giftland while GPL will additionally be paying for fuel at around $25.6 million per month. In total, this deal works out to approximately $35.5 million per month.
In presenting the 2021 national budget, Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh disclosed that electricity supply is estimated to have grown in 2020 by 1.2 per cent. With this figure slated to further increase this year, Government is pushing to expand its energy supply to Guyanese across the country with more reliable electricity at an affordable cost.
To this end, Government is embarking on piping gas to shore to meet the growing demand for electricity. Conceptualised as a 210-kilometre pipeline to transport natural gas from offshore Guyana, the gas to power project will be the trailblazer to advance Guyana’s path to domestic energy security within the next three years. (G12)
