Chinese company forced to import wooden power poles

Jun 15, 2013 News

The country’s power company is continuing to face a hard time acquiring poles. This is hampering expansion plans, said the contractor.

GPL has again expressed worry amidst worry over the shortage of power poles.

As a matter of fact, the Guyana Power and Light Inc. (GPL) said this week, that it has agreed for a Chinese contractor that is running miles of new transmission lines, to import specially-treated pine poles. At least 200 of these poles have arrived in the country, confirms Chief Executive Officer, Bharat Dindyal.
Currently, GPL needs at least 800 wallaba poles, to keep up with regular maintenance and other works.
Wallaba is a hardwood found to be ideally suited to be used as power poles. Both GPL and the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company Limited have been using them extensively over the years.
However, suppliers have been finding it harder to go deeper into the forests for the poles. GPL has also been battling suppliers over prices also.
According to Dindyal, it has even asked the Ministry of Housing to find its own poles for new schemes.
GPL has been examining the possibilities of using alternatives from as far back as 2011 after demand for the wallaba poles grew amidst a housing boom. Whether the new poles will be metal or otherwise is still being looked at.
GPL is mandated to provide power within days of application or face penalties, under new regulations.
In recent years, Government’s housing programmes have been placing tremendous strain on the power company to find the poles.
Last year, Dindyal said that US$40M new transmission lines project was threatened after suppliers of the poles demanded more money.
GPL then was short of 12,000 poles to string its transmission lines.
Last year, an advertisement by GPL invited interested parties to submit expressions of interests for the supply of “alternative types of poles”.
These include the possibilities of pre-stressed and reinforced concrete, tubular steel, treated pine or composite. (Leonard Gildarie)