GPL assures blackouts will ease by mid-December with additional generation procured

See the full statement issued below:

On Friday, September 29, 2023, the Guyana Power and Light Inc. (GPL) publicly announced that the company had reached a historic peak in electricity demand, recorded at an unprecedented 182 Megawatts (MWs).

This situation is not unique to GPL, as countries around the Caribbean have recorded significant increases in demand due to rising temperatures in the region.

GPL’s Development and Expansion Plan, 2023-2027 (Table 4, Page 15) projected 186.6 MWs in 2023. Given this projection, the company began acquiring additional generation through Public Tenders early this year.

This process resulted in the procurement of 28.9 MWs of generation as an interim solution in anticipation of the 300MW Natural Gas Power Plant at Wales, West Bank Demerara.

This supplementary generation will become operational in mid-December, bolstering GPL’s ability to meet the increased demand.

Currently, the daily peak demand has been surpassing our existing generation capabilities. In order to prevent total system shutdowns resulting from insufficient generation, the company has been temporarily de-energizing some distribution feeders daily during peak demand periods to maintain grid stability, Regrettably, these service disruptions are driven by the daily monitoring of generation availability and demand, GPL acknowledges the inconvenience these service interruptions are causing and wishes to reassure our customers that we remain committed to resolving the situation in mid-December.