Continued blackouts leading to disruption in production – GCCI bemoans disappointment

…GPL says blackouts should ease by mid-December

The Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) on Thursday stressed its disappointment with the continued spate of power outages in Guyana, as it weighed in on the negative impact to businesses and production.
In a statement, the Chamber of Commerce highlighted that constant power disruptions are having an acute impact on the productivity of enterprises. The GCCI has also noted that this is cascading into general underperformance of enterprises.
“This continued loss of productive time, disruption to production and an overall hindrance to the smooth functioning of business will impede both growth and investment prospects,” said the Chamber.
At this time, the entity underscored its unwavering support for investments that will create a sustainable energy mix for Guyana including the Amaila Falls Hydropower Project, the Gas-to-Energy Project and solar farms.
“These projects, in the view of the Chamber, represent the future of Guyana’s energy supply. However, the Chamber of Commerce also calls on the Guyana Power and Light and, by extension, the Government of Guyana to employ measures that will bridge the current generation shortfall,” the GCCI said.
According to the Private Sector body, better forecasting, planning and investments into the energy sector will profoundly mitigate this bugbear on the life of the Guyanese people.
“Power outages have been decades-long feature of life in Guyana and, it is the hope of the Chamber of Commerce that this does not translate into life in our newfound status as a rapidly emerging economy.”

Mid-December
Meanwhile, state-owned GPL is projecting that Guyanese will expect an ease to the current situation until mid-December when supplemental generation comes on stream.
On Friday, the utility company publicly announced that it had reached a historic peak in electricity demand, recording an unprecedented 182 megawatts (MWs).
It reasoned that this situation was not unique to GPL, as countries around the Caribbean have recorded significant increases in demand due to rising temperatures in the region.
GPL’s Development and Expansion Plan 2023-2027 projected 186.6 MWs in 2023. Given this projection, the company began acquiring additional generation through public tenders early this year. This process resulted in the procurement of 28.9 MWs of generation as an interim solution in anticipation of the 300MW Natural Gas Power Plant at Wales, West Bank Demerara.
“This supplementary generation will become operational in mid-December, bolstering GPL’s ability to meet the increased demand,” GPL communicated on Thursday.
Currently, the daily peak demand has been surpassing our existing generation capabilities. In order to prevent total system shutdowns resulting from insufficient generation, the company has been temporarily de-energising some distribution feeders daily during peak demand periods to maintain grid stability. Regrettably, these service disruptions are driven by the daily monitoring of generation availability and demand.
GPL acknowledges the inconvenience these service interruptions are causing and wishes to reassure customers that it remained committed to resolving the situation in mid-December.
Last month, GPL announced that large consumers of electricity, who each have a power-generating capacity, would be removed from the grid during the period 18:00h to 22:00h in order to prevent widespread service disruption for the population.
Initially, large industrial customers with self-generating capacity were asked to produce their own power during peak demand hours. However, only a small percentage responded positively.
Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo had explained during his press conference that at this point in time, demand exceeds the capacity to supply. This increase came about due to expansion of businesses, increased housing development, and more recently, the heated conditions, which has prompted consumers to use air conditioners and other cooling devices.
However, the ‘biggest worry’ is large consumers flooding the grid. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Government had moved the excise tax on fuel from 50 per cent down to zero per cent in a bid to combat increasing global prices for oil and the impact those increases were having on the local economy. As such, self-generation became more expensive, and many companies opted to use the GPL supply to capitalise on the subsidised costs. (G12)