Guyana’s power demand to surge 600% by 2030 – GPL Head

As the country’s rapid development accelerates, demand for electricity is projected to surge by an astonishing 600 per cent over the next five years, according to forecasts from Guyana Power and Light (GPL) Inc.
During a panel discussion at the Guyana Energy Conference and Supply Chain Expo on Thursday, Head of Executive Management at GPL, Kesh Nandlall, outlined the projected growth in power demand for the next five years.
“Peak demand is now at 236 megawatts (MW). By 2030, we estimated it to be 1,650 MW or 1 gigawatt (GW), 650 MW of peak demand output that we’ll have to have generation in place [to meet]…that means 600 per cent increase in our generating capacity from now to 2030,” Nandlall stated.
Moreover, the current 236 megawatts peak demand is a significant growth from 2020, where it stood at 120 megawatts – representing a 100 per cent over the last five years.
The GPL Head explained that this increase is driven not only by growth in the consumer base, but mostly by the rising power demands of existing consumers.
In 2020, the state-owned power company had a register of some 201,000 customers but that figure has since gone up to 244,000, an increase of 21 per cent.
“So, that significant growth results from existing customer demand growing and new customers. We talk about the rapid development of the housing sector [and] the development of the industrial sector. So, the grow really is in the generation requirement more than the number of customers. The same customers are demand more and bigger customers are coming on [to the national grid],” the GPL boss stated.
Currently, GPL’s generation output stands at 1,485 gigawatt/hour compared to 903 gigawatt/hour in 2020.
According to Nandlall, this 65 per cent increase was due to number of interventions over the last five years to bolster supply to meet the soaring energy demands and keep pace with the country’s expanding economy.
“We had to really move very quickly to meet this increase in demand. From 2020 to now, we have added more than 186 megawatts of firm capacity including the 46.5 MW at Garden of Eden; the 28.9 MW at Colombia; the 36 MW power ship in Berbice River… and the 60 MW power ship in the Demerara River. Recently, we’ve added 18 MW of solar to the grid – 10 MW in Berbice at three locations and on the Essequibo Coast at two locations,” he outlined.
These, according to the GPL Head, have been complemented by small solar systems at Bartica, Wakenaam and Leguan coupled with mini-grids through the various hinterland regions.

DBIS
Meanwhile, the Demerara Berbice Interconnected System (DBIS), the country’s primary grid that links the western Demerara system and the eastern Berbice system generating facilities, currently has approximately 260 MW of firm capacity available. According to Nandlall, this figure is likely to spike to around 285 MW this year.
“We have to now equip ourselves to bridge that gap until the end of the year when the Gas-to-Energy (GtE) Project will come onstream,” Nandlall stated.
Located at Wales, West Bank Demerara, the GtE Project comprised a 300-megawatt combined cycle power plant and a Natural Gas Liquids (NGL) facility. The Guyana Government has touted this initiative as the country’s answer to both reliable and cheap electricity, with prices set to the slashed by half when it comes on stream later this year.
But with power demand expecting to increase by 600 per cent over the coming years, the power plant will be inadequate to meet Guyana’s growing demand. Against this background, the government is embarking on a second power plant to add another 300 MW of electricity to the national grid.
That second project – GtE Phase Two, which also includes another NGL facility, is slated to come onstream in 2030.