Power generation Demerara barely above demand – GPL

May 02, 2009 News

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…blackouts may ease soon

Over the past few months, residents on the West Coast and West Bank of Demerara, as well as others in the Demerara Interconnected system have been affected by continuous power outages.
However, this is about to change in the coming weeks, as two machines, a five-megawatt (MW) Niigata and a three-megawatt Crossly Machine is expected to be back into operation at the Garden of Eden Power station by the end of the month.

This is according to Chief Executive Officer of the Guyana Power and Light Company (GPL), Bharat Dindyal, who noted at a press conference on Thursday, that the Niigata Machine had an alternator failure in January, while the Crossly Machine had a bearing failure last March.
He said that the alternator for the Niigata machine has been shipped to the UK for repairs and is expected back this month while the special bearings required for the Crossly machine would be delivered by next week.
In the meantime, two additional machines are expected to be in service at the Garden of Eden plant, which will allow adequate generation capacity. However, Dindyal cautioned that the power outages still remain weak.

He said that at the end of last December, the available generation in the Demerara Interconnected System reduced from 78MW to 70MW currently due to the failure of these machines.
“The reduction in available capacity to 70MW increases the probability of power outages as the unavailability of any of the twenty-nine machines can create a generation shortfall. Power outages have increased in frequency in the recent past without notification to our consumers largely because of a series of mechanical problems on various machines, including our Wartsila sets. This has resulted in disruption in the routines of individuals and the operations of businesses,” Dindyal said.

He explained that the eight Wartsila machines contribute 44 megawatts of the 68MW needed to meet the Demerara peak and are therefore critical to the maintenance of a reliable and adequate supply.
“Currently we have a potential capacity of 70MW to meet a peak demand of 68MW but a significant portion of this capacity includes 18 Caterpillar power modules which are susceptible to failure when operated continuously, or old equipment which are beyond their useful life.”

GPL’s available capacity during the evening peak varies between 63MW and 67.5MW and this invariably results in at least one feeder being interrupted.
Currently, one Wartsila machine is operating with two mechanical defects and parts are being procured and airfreighted from Finland.
Dindyal said that work is moving apace on GPL’s new 20MW power plant in Kingston, which is expected to begin commercial operation in the third quarter of this year.
This would add much-needed base load capacity to Demerara allowing adequate generation capacity to meet peak demand.

He also noted that some of the power outages are directly related to network faults as well, as there are pieces of automatic equipment supervising all of their feeders, which are designed to interrupt power supply if abnormal conditions are detected, and so powers are taken off automatically.
“We rely heavily on consumers calling in to report faults, because we don’t have any equipment to identify where our faults might be or whether they are temporary. We rely entirely on consumers calling us and saying there is a problem here.”
Commenting on the situation in Essequibo, Dindyal said that power outages are minimal, as current power generation capacity at Anna Regina is 4MW, at Wakenaam is 0.65MW, at Leguan is 0.325MW and at Bartica is 1.4MW.

GPL is completing the commissioning of a 1.4MW Caterpillar generator at Bartica, which would double the available capacity.
Available generation capacity at all four locations in Essequibo is adequate and the minor disruption in supply has resulted from planned maintenance activities.
For Berbice, power outages are also stable for now, as GPL has an available capacity of 10.6MW in Berbice but imports up to 8.5MW from GuySuCo’s Skeldon new factory.

This, Dindyal said, is adequate to meet a peak demand of 14.5MW in Regions Five and Six.
“Power outages result from planned maintenance and emergency repairs on our network and generator faults. Outages relating to generator faults are generally of short duration but planned maintenance activities on our network necessitate outages lasting many hours,” he explained.
Meanwhile, for capital projects in Berbice, major components have been shipped to continue the rebuilding of the five MW No.3 Mirrlees at Canefield.

This machine should be commissioned on diesel in July, while work will commence immediately after to rebuild the 5MW, No.4 Mirrlees and this might be returned to service in October using Heavy Fuel Oil.
GPL expects to commission its 69KV transmission link to Skeldon in July and this would allow for a secure, adequate and reliable connection to move more than 10MW of power for distribution.

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