Wind energy not consistent with GPL’s capacity – CEO

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Guyana Power and Light (GPL), Albert Gordon has indicated that wind power is not reliable or consistent with the needs of customers and has prized integration from various sources as a more viable model.

He made these comments at the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) hearing on Tuesday. The CEO’s disclosure follows reports of at least two businessmen indicating their interest is setting up wind turbines to generate wind energy.
There was a back and forth with Government and Berbice businessman Haresh Narine Sugrim who was awaiting his request to power his wind turbine to provide his Classic Hotel and Theatre with electricity and then make a profit by selling the remaining electricity to the Government of Guyana so that other residents could benefit.
The wind energy projects came up for discussion at the Public Utilities Commission’s hearing at Cara Lodge on Tuesday, where GPL’s operating standards and performance targets were assessed. Commissioner Rajendra Bissessar citing reports of the investors interested in establishing wind turbines, questioned if the power company was considering this form of clean energy especially since it forms part of Government’s Green Agenda Strategy. While acknowledging that GPL is mandated to follow State polices, CEO Gordon conceded that wind energy is not consistent with the needs of consumers.
“For the wind project, that’s not very consistent, it’s not what we would call firm capacity – it happens when the wind blows, you’ll have to study the data to know reliabilities but you can’t predict exactly. We don’t want to subject all customers to a supply that is pretty much guaranteed to be fluctuating regularly so the best thing is to integrate those into a larger system that can absorb the variations,” he observed.

The CEO explained that integration may be the most appropriate model as GPL’s unstable system suffered several shutdowns last year. “Essentially what we have is a very unstable system as was indicated last year, the entire system went down 25 times, in one year but it’s not a reflection of management or the operations per say, it’s the nature of the configuration of the system,” he said.
Berbice businessman Sugrim was expected to commission a new US$75,000 wind turbine at Skeldon Line Path in January of this year but he later said he was forced to send the equipment back to India, as Government was lagging to take up his offer. However, Public Infrastructure Minister David Patterson last week refuted the hotelier’s claims, saying that the businessman was advised that it was currently not possible for an individual to connect to the grid unless the supply met the minimum of 1.5 MW.
Apart from Sugrim’s shelved interest, there was another project which Government had announced months after taking office in 2015 where it said it would facilitate a US$50 million, 25-megawatt wind farm project at Hope Beach, East Coast of Demerara. However, discussions relating to this project were also seemingly shelved as the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) decried that the project involved a party-affiliated investor, Lloyd Singh.
Guyana Times reported last year that there were negotiations to bring the wind farm to fruition but PPP/C Member of Parliament (MP) Juan Edghill voiced concerns over transparency and accountability of the project.
“The issue with the wind farm is that they must be able to come clean and show what price GPL will be buying. Is it cheaper than hydro? Would it be driving down the present bill for GPL that will positively impact the rate the consumers are paying? Or would it be a cash cow for an [Alliance For Change] AFC financier. Because with the hydro, we were bringing down the cost of electricity to 10 to 12 cents (US) per kilowatt for power,” Edghill had explained.
Guyana Times had also reported that the AFC had identified International Pharmaceutical Agency (IPA) proprietor Lloyd Singh as an investor in the wind farm, with responsible for the party’s acquisition of its multimillion-dollar headquarters in February of 2016.