Deputy Chief Executive Officer (DCEO) of Strategic Operation at the Guyana Power and Light (GPL), Samaroo Ramtahal has revealed that the power company has a plan in place to ensure that customers are provided with reliable electricity. GPL has lately been faced with harsh criticism in relation to the prolonged period of blackouts affecting communities across the country.
GPL DCEO Samaroo Ramtahal
During a recent interview, Ramtahal issued an apology for the reliability issues that are being faced by the power company and assured that GPL is working assiduously to provide a better quality of services, especially for the upcoming Christmas season.
He, therefore, promised, “We [GPL] are working to provide better quality services especially for the upcoming Christmas holidays.” He announced that GPL is looking to bring on stream a five megawatts system it has acquired from Giftland by the end of this month.
Beyond that, he said that GPL is currently looking to activate a new 30-megawatt dual engine generator by December. That aside, he explained that GPL has been faced with specific challenges over the last five years as there was “very small investment” in electricity generation.
According to the DCEO, some of the generators in use by the power company are beyond their lifespan. For instance, he said that some of them are 20 years old and beyond. With regards to supply and demand, he admitted that GPL is struggling to balance the two.
For its supply, he said that there is between 130-135 megawatts available. During peak hours, the demand is between 120 and 125 megawatts. However, this means that GPL is only currently operating with a spare capacity of between five to 10 megawatts.
“Now that is very, very low. And that is the Demerara-Berbice Interconnection System,” he noted adding that typically any utility company in the Caribbean would have at least between 30-35 per cent in the reserve.
“We are under five per cent. So that means when you have a problem at any one of the locations with the generators, the system would go off because we cannot balance supply and demand,” Ramtahal further noted.
This, he pointed out, is the reason for the frequent blackouts. “That is a big part of the reason although we have other transmission and distribution line problems.”
The DCEO added that the power company’s biggest challenge has to do with its ageing generators, and that this issue will be addressed from now until December.
Moreover, the GPL official said that the best possibility to reduce the cost of electricity in Guyana is to utilise natural gas from the oil and gas sector. In that regard, he said that in the next two years, GPL hopes to bring on board a 200-megawatt generator powered by natural gas.
