Patrons of the National Park in Georgetown will now benefit from the facility’s much needed $8 million upgrade in lights.
With the assistance of the British High Commission, the Guyana Energy Agency (GEA) oversaw the installation of 45 integrated stand-alone solar powered 80w Light Emitted Diode (LED) street lights at the Guyana National Park.
The particulars of the project involved replacing the incompetent 250-watt mercury vapour lamps with the more efficient 80-watt solar powered lights.
The Integrated solar powered street lights use renewable energy from the sun to charge the batteries, which provide lighting at nights using energy efficient LED
One of the 45 energy efficient lights that were installed in the National Park
lights. Total cost of the project, which was financed by the British High Commission in Georgetown through the UK’s Prosperity Fund, is Gy$8,158,288. GEA’s Energy Engineer Brian Constantine explained that the supply and installation cost translates into a unit cost of $178,500 per light.
After a thorough evaluation of the project and the target area, the GEA determined that it would be suitable to place the new lights on the poles that had been there before, to avoid additional costing. The GEA expressed that the lights will not only conserve financially, but energy consumption and carbon emission will also be cut down. 49,275kWh of energy and 29,565kg of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions annually will be avoided/saved through this investment. This translates to over G$2,800,000 yearly in savings in electricity costs.
Meanwhile, in a statement, British High Commissioner Greg Quinn noted: “It is incumbent on us all to do what we can to mitigate our impact on the environment, and to improve energy efficiency. The High Commission therefore welcomed the opportunity to work with the GEA to install these lights.”
