Transformer explosion, circuit breaker problems cause power outages on WCD

Following several reports from residents along the West Coast of Demerara about power outages occurring every 30 minutes, Minister within the Public Works Ministry, Deodat Indar, confirmed to Guyana Times on Wednesday evening that there was an issue at the breaker at the sub-station in Edinburgh, Leonora.
“There is a breaker that keeps tripping all the time there. It happened this afternoon, so the [GPL workers] ran the entire line from there till to Parika, but they didn’t see any sparking or anything on the line. So, they went back to the substation to see if anything happened there itself,” he noted.
Additionally, he noted that at Zeelugt Phase Three, East Bank Essequibo, there were several outages within an hour, adding that was a “localised fault” and not anything on the distribution system itself. He said that the GPL team was on the ground fixing the issue.
Meanwhile, there was also an explosion at one of the transformers at Hague, WCD. It resulted in low-voltage in the area. The Minister within the Public Works Ministry added that a team had also been dispatched there.
Earlier on Wednesday, Guyana Power and Light Incorporated (GPL) announced that the source of the Demerara-Berbice Interconnected System (DBIS) shutdown that occurred on Monday was identified and corrected.
In a statement, GPL said a comprehensive investigation that was conducted by a technical team identified two damaged conductors and connectors on the 69 kV Transmission Line 3 bay (an area that houses circuit breakers and disconnect switches) at the Garden of Eden (GoE) Power Plant.
The damaged conductors and connectors resulted in an overload of two Wartsila engines at GoE, which triggered the loss of another two engines at the same location, followed by six other engines at the Kingston Power Plant and the eventual collapse of the DBIS.
“Our company continues to conduct comprehensive maintenance and invest in significant upgrade of the GoE Power Plant in preparation for the commissioning of a new 45.5 megawatt Power Plant,” GPL has said.