90% of circuits repowered; other areas to get back electricity by 2 pm – GPL CEO

Approximately 90% of power circuits have been repowered on the country’s main power supply system after a shutdown early Monday morning, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Guyana Power and Light Inc. (GPL), Bharat Dindyal, has stated.

Dindyal said that all consumers can expect to receive power before 14:00 hrs Monday, April 12, 2021.

The update comes after Minister of Public Works, Deodat Indar, said an “electrical issue” at the power company’s Garden of Eden, East Bank Demerara location caused a total shutdown of the Demerara and Berbice Interconnected System.

The Demerara and Berbice Interconnected System provides electricity from Parika, East Bank Essequibo and along West Demerara to East Coast Demerara and then on to Berbice all the way to Moleson Creek on the Corentyne Coast. It also provides power south to Kururu on the Soesdyke/Linden Highway and to Timehri, East Bank Demerara.

The CEO said that the company is still receiving information from its various power plants in efforts to understand the reason for the shutdown.

“We have one power transformer out at Garden of Eden, and it’s probably one suspect. That transformer was put in service in the 70s and it’s actually due for retirement so we’re actually investigating whether in fact that caused the system to collapse. But there’s a lot more data to come in and we have to analyze all the data,” Dindyal explained.

He continued on to say that plans are being made to retire a number of transformers – at #53 Village, East-Berbice Corentyne, Onverwagt, Mahaica-Berbice, Garden of Eden, East Bank Demerara and Sophia, Greater Georgetown – and replace them through a US$2 million investment.

He noted that power in Demerara would have been restored whilst some consumers in Berbice are still experiencing blackouts.

Five Wartsila generators, which have been repeatedly touted to be among the breakthrough initiatives for increasing electricity supply, arrived in the country last December.

It was said then that those generators will not come on stream until the end of April 2021, when the almost 50-year power plant at Garden of Eden completes its upgrade.

The five generators, each of which has the capacity to generate 9.3 MW of power, is part of the bigger 46 MW project.