Demand for power projected to jump to 236 megawatts in 2024 – Min Indar

…50% increase over 2020

The demand for electric power is being driven by the massive developments that are unfolding, and the Guyana Power and Light has projected that a whopping 236 megawatts of electricity would be needed in 2024.
When the Government entered office in 2020, there was a demand for 120 megawatts of electricity. This grew to 136 megawatts in 2021; 156 megawatts in 2022; and then peaked at 184 megawatts in 2023. This year’s peak was recorded when all industrial customers were on the grid.
Minister within the Public Works Ministry, Deodat Indar, on Thursday, during a press conference, projected that the demand for power would meet 236 megawatts next year. This means that in less than five years, power demand would have increased by almost 50 per cent. According to the Minister, plans will be set in motion to adequately cater for this demand.

“We will have the generation to see the kind of demand that we’re seeing now, but we also have to prepare for next year too. So, we are looking forward to that,” Minister Indar zeroed in.
Power usage peaked this year after many self-generating consumers migrated to the public grid in a bid to capitalise on the lower power costs – an advantage of Government subsidies to keep the cost-of-living stable.
Currently, there are 557 consumers who are capable of self-generating. They are otherwise classified as ‘Class D’. These would consume about 30 per cent of the total power generated for the entire grid. They have since been removed from the grid at peak hours in order to cater to the common households. In taking them off the grid, Minister Indar relayed, it has helped to reduce blackouts.
GPL has about 224,000 customers in total, with a current demand of 172 megawatts. With a capacity of about 167 megawatts, thousands of customers still face disruptions. To meet current demands, Government has invested in a US$27 million arrangement to purchase generating sets which can provide an additional 28.9 megawatts to the grid by December. As such, the reliable output would be around 203 megawatts of power.
GPL was also expected to meet with management of the Giftland Group on Friday to determine whether power could be purchased again from the Group. Under a power purchasing agreement entered into in 2020, Giftland started to supply the GPL grid with electricity. It had a system that produced 6.7 megawatts of electricity, five megawatts of which were HFO [heavy fuel oil] fuelled, but it was only utilizing 1.6 megawatts during prime operations at the mall. As such, the Government had tapped into Giftland’s excess power supply to boost the capacity of the GPL grid until that arrangement expired.
It has been reported that with the rapid expansion of the housing programme, the creation of new infrastructural projects, and the overall expansion of the economy, a higher output of electricity remains critical. These interim arrangements are being made by the Government until the 300-megawatt gas-to-energy plant comes onstream in 2025.
When the gas-to-energy project comes online, Guyana could save between US$150 million and US$200 million in foreign currency that would otherwise have been invested in the country’s fuel importation.
The scope of Guyana’s gas-to-energy project consists of the construction of 225 kilometres of pipeline from the Liza field in the Stabroek Block offshore Guyana, where Exxon and its partners are currently producing oil.
It features approximately 200 kilometres of a subsea pipeline offshore that would be run from Liza Destiny and Liza Unity floating, production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessels in the Stabroek Block to the shore. Upon landing on the West Coast Demerara shore, the pipeline would continue for approximately 25 kilometres to the NGL plant at Wales, West Bank Demerara. (G-12)