Vice President Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo said the Guyana Power and Light (GPL), Guyana’s main power generating company, was forced to take about 15 businesses off the power grid during peak hours after engagements on their electricity use failed.
He did not name any of the businesses but said the “massive users” include “malls and so with generating capacity” of their own.
Jagdeo clarified that these large power consumers are getting subsidized power from GPL for most of the day but they have been asked to use their own resources to generate the power they need during peak hours (from 18:00 hrs to 22:00 hrs).
But that did not go as planned since those large users were unwilling to come off of the grid. Jagdeo said the company was faced with the decision of affecting the 15 or so businesses or having about 30,000 people affected.
“They [GPL] now had to resort to taking some of them off last night,” Jagdeo said at a People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) press conference on Thursday.
In a notice published on Wednesday, GPL said it has been taking some large customers off the power grid during peak hours to prevent widespread disruptions because of the “unprecedented peak demand” for electricity locally.
Those large customers are those capable of generating their own power but, according to Jagdeo, they opted to source power from GPL because the government was subsiding the cost of electricity from the power company.
Previously, Jagdeo said GPL has about 174 megawatts (MW) of installed capacity but the government was sourcing another 30MW of power. That unit should be delivered to Guyana before year-end and once delivered, power shortages should be reduced.
And Jagdeo knocked concerns about the government’s decision to purchase a reconditioned 30MW unit to meet power demand.
He reminded people that the massive 300MW Wales Gas-to-Energy project would be developed by 2025 so the government did not want to start a new long-term power supply arrangement.
When the Gas-to-Energy project is operational, Guyanese are expected to benefit from energy at about half the current costs. And Jagdeo said much of GPL’s current generating capacity will be saved in reserves.
2025 is another phase of crisis that will deal with another generation, the time is now not then,. we’re being fooled for years.