The Guyana Power & Light (GPL) Inc. says it has successfully completed maintenance on the 69 kilovolts (kv) transmission line linking the Kingston Power Station to the Sophia Substation during the prolonged period of power outage on Sunday (November 19, 2017).
In a statement on Monday evening, the power company said it has been able to clear vegetation and replace several primary poles, line hardware, and other components.
The opportunity was also taken to service the equipment within the switchyard inclusive of power transformers, at our Kingston Substation, GPL said.
During the execution of the aforementioned work, customers within Demerara and a lesser extent Berbice experienced intermittent outages around 07:30 hrs and 18:00hrs, as some circuits were switched to and from alternative sources of power supply.
The company said, “this was necessary to reduce the number of customers affected by entire duration of the extensive maintenance activity.”
Additionally, instances of sudden and unexpected reduction in generation output from the Cogeneration Plant at Skeldon resulted in some additional areas experiencing outages.
The power company said it is “cognizant of the inconveniences” and extend apologies to affected customers.
When GPL celebrated its 18th anniversary in October, Chief Executive Officer (ag), Renford Homer had said the company “prefers to be a utility with 100% record of no outages, 100% record of no fluctuation in voltages and 100% record of seeing smiling faces every time we look out at our customer base,” but one of the major obstacles is the size of the investment needed.
