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Blackouts bombard Berbicians

Jun 09, 2011 News

Berbicians are once again reeling from the humbug of constant power blackouts. It all began last Wednesday when the region was plagued by power outages. There was an average of about nine blackouts, each lasting about 90 minutes in most of Region Six.
When contacted last week, Regional Manager of Guyana Power and Light Inc. (GPL), Ayube Bacchus, said that he had no clue about the reason for the outages. The official said that there had been no malfunctioning equipment at either of the two generating facilities in Berbice (Canefield and Skeldon power plants) and that the outdoor crews were not aware of any transmission problems within the network.
Bacchus said that GPL would be troubleshooting power lines in different areas in a bid to locate the source of the mysterious problem.
Many Berbicians, especially businesspersons, have complained of the power returning with a very high voltage that can damage their equipment. Sometimes, too, the power returns for a second or two, long enough to have everyone breathe a sigh of relief, and is then gone again.
During an April interview, Bacchus stated that the Berbice system has more than adequate the number of megawatts of power to supply to Berbicians.
“In the Berbice area, we have sufficient generation to meet our peak demand. However, there may be instances where we will have short periods of blackouts”, Bacchus said. He said that the available generation is sufficient to meet the peak demands of Regions Five and Six.
The peak demand of Region Six is 16.5 megawatts and 12 megawatts, off- peak. There are over 20 megawatts available in the system to satisfy the demands. West Coast Berbice has a peak demand of four megawatts.
Berbice is currently being served by the Canefield Power Station which provides some eight megawatts; Onverwagt, 7.2 megawatts and Skeldon Modernisation Factory exporting about eight megawatts to the power company for distribution in the regional grid.
Meanwhile, New Amsterdam, East Berbice, Canje and the Corentyne coast continue to suffer daily power outages.
The number of blackouts in the first eight days or so in June has already totaled 16. Engineers at the Canefield Power Station will not comment on the matter, neither will Senior Transmission and Distribution Engineer, Leon Williams who promised to send a press release yesterday but none was forthcoming. Mr Bacchus is currently on leave.
Efforts to reach the Public Relations Officer of GPL, Ron Robinson, proved futile. (Leon Suseran)

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