GPL now has reserve power; power outages due to shortages not expected – Jagdeo

Now that the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) Inc has more power than is needed, no power outages caused by shortages are to be expected, according to Vice President Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo.

The Vice President spoke about resolving Guyana’s electricity woes on Friday, during his weekly press conference at the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) Headquarters, Freedom House.

According to him, the Demerara Berbice Interconnected System (DBIS) run by GPL now boasts 267 megawatts (MW) of power with the infusion of the two power ships, solar power projects and other installed capacity.

With peak demand at just about 200MW, Jagdeo explained that GPL now has about 67MW of reserve power. And this is the first time in a while, he said, that the power company has extra power.

As such, the company can now do maintenance on some its its older sets without effecting any power outages.

“GPL is using part of this as reserve and this would allow them to do maintenance without affecting the availability of the power in the system

“We are expecting better levels of performance now

“We don’t expect to have blackout the way we had because of shortage of power or the availability of power,” the Vice President said.

He, however, noted that faults in the system can result in unexpected power outages.

The Vice President hailed this development and said it took a “great deal of effort” to bring GPL to this point. And he said GPL’s performance will be rigorously monitored.