Govt upbraids businessman for misleading statements

Wind turbine saga

Public Infrastructure Minister David Patterson is refuting claims that businessman Hareshnarine Sugrim was not kept in the loop in relation to his request to store power from his wind turbine, and to transfer same to the national grid.
Sugrim last year commissioned a billion-dollar five-star hotel called the Classic International Hotel at Corriverton in East Berbice. He also imported a wind turbine to power his operations, but the turbine would have produced more power than he required, hence he had approached Government to have the excess power

transferred to the national grid.
The Classic International Hotel has said in a statement that it moved to acquire the wind turbine in support of the Government’s “Green State” vision, and that despite the turbine having been set up for a number of months, Government is yet to decide on purchasing the excess power.
The Classic’s statement said: “Also commendable is the national objective of creating and utilising alternative sources of energy. As such, we are very perturbed and dismayed that we have not yet received a response to our offer to the Government for the supply to the national grid from our 250 KVA wind turbine set at Skeldon, Corriverton, Berbice.”
The hotel statement said relevant correspondence had been sent to Minister Patterson; officials of the Guyana Power and Light in Region Six, and to other stakeholders.
“It has been set up four months ago, after being imported to Guyana from India over a year ago. However, as the situation stands right now, apart from feeling deflated in our quest to be supportive of national development efforts, we are contemplating dismantling the turbine, which is already set up and operational at tremendous costs to us, and shipping it back out of the country,” the hotel said.

In an interview with this publication, Narine said he would be forced to pack up his US$75,000 wind turbine and send it back to India, since Government is lagging in taking up his offer.
However, Minister Patterson, in a statement, said Government applauds the businessman for his interest in advancing the Green State Agenda, and it is disappointing to read his claims of non-responsiveness on part of the GoG, “when several correspondences from different agencies within the MPI were sent to him”.
The minister said he would have met with Sugrim in the past in relation to the matter.
Chronicling the events, Patterson said that in April of last year, the MPI and its energy- related agencies were surprised to read the reports of the launch of the wind turbine, and were also surprised about the mention of a request to MPI, the Guyana Energy Agency (GEA), or the Guyana Power and Light Inc. (GPL) for its installation and use, since the wind turbine was designed, procured, and installed without their knowledge.
“Nonetheless, we replied shortly afterwards and indicated that, under the law, any person can self-generate. However, we had said the law only restricts persons from supplying power to another, except in cases where a license is granted by the minister.
“We also invited Mr. Narine to meet with us to clarify any questions and to provide

whatever assistance we reasonably could,” Patterson said.
He further explained that in September of 2017, the businessman wrote to GPL to introduce his wind turbine, which has the capacity to generate 350KVA of power, and he had indicated that he would be requiring a mere 20 percent of that for his operations.
Minister Patterson said that via letter on October 17, 2017, he was then briefed by the hotelier about the turbine, which was expected to become operational by the end of that month. He said it was related that Sugrim’s initial intention was to use the power from the turbine to power a housing development, but the project never materialized, resulting in the underutilization of power and the issue of storing the excess power.
“However, GPL’s existing frameworks cover the connection to its grid of either independent power producers (IPPs) supplying 10 MW and more or businesses supplying 1.5 MW and above. As a result, Mr. Narine was advised that it was not possible at this time for an individual to connect to the grid unless the supply met the minimum of 1.5 MW. He was further advised that GPL was limited due to ongoing development of a policy, and legal and technical frameworks to permit and guide supply that is less than 1.5 MW and the sensitive technical issues affecting any supply of power of an intermittent nature (such as wind or solar) to the grid,” Patterson outlined.
“Nonetheless, we agreed to examine Mr. Narine’s proposal with GPL with the objective of identifying and addressing the technical issues while we develop the framework for intermittent power supply below 1.5 MW to the grid. On January 22, 2018, a letter from Mr. Narine to His Excellency, President David Granger, stated that the wind turbine could not operate without a connection to GPL’s grid, as per the advice of engineers from India, who came to Guyana upon Mr. Narine’s invitation for the turbine’s commissioning.
On the said date, Mr. Narine wrote to me urging the connection of the turbine to the grid, since his invited engineers were present. On January 25, 2017, he later requested a licence to supply power to the grid,” Patterson related.
The Minister said he met with the businessman in February and agreed to discuss his request with GPL. He also urged persons be mindful of GPL’s policies when it comes to the intent of supplying power to the national grid.