With an unprecedented demand for electricity locally, the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) has been taking some large customers off the power grid during peak hours to prevent widespread disruptions.
The power company, in a notice published on social media, noted that the demand for electricity reached an “unprecedented peak demand” of 182 Megawatts (MW).
And it noted, “This high demand has presented a challenge for GPL’s current available generation capacity.”
Because GPL does not produce enough power to meet such high demand, the company has encouraged large companies capable of producing their own electricity to do so- at least during peak hours (from 18:00 hrs to 22:00 hrs).
Not all of the companies capable of generating their own power have done so, however. So GPL has to manually take these users off the grid during peak hours.
“Regrettably, only a small percentage of these customers responded positively.
“This partial response has necessitated the need for GPL to proceed to remove these customers from the grid between 18:00 hrs and 22:00 hrs daily.
“This is a temporary but necessary measure for the company to prevent service disruptions,” the power company said.
Last week, Vice President Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo said a new policy was crafted to tax the “big users” who have recently started taking electricity from GPL and driving up the demand beyond what the company can supply.
According to him, GPL has about 174MW 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.
