GPL loses $600M every month in line losses

Sep 12, 2013 News

…a costly factor

Guyana Power and Light Inc (GPL) spends in the vicinity of $700M every 10 days to purchase fuel but with its technical and commercial losses at 31 per cent, this would mean every ten days the company loses at least $217M of that money.
GPL’s gets its money from its customers who pay for electricity each month, and grants from central Government.
This past week, the Chief Executive Officer of the power company, Bharat Dindyal, along with the company’s top brass, had met with members of the public to discuss the performance of the power company.
Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the power company, Aeshwar Deonarine, lamenting the critical nature of the fuel bill, disclosed that the company would have to find between $600M and $700M to buy fuel every ten days.
It was pointed out during that meeting also that the US$42M upgrade to the transmission and distribution network currently underway would only reduce the system losses by two per cent.
The power company has been experiencing losses at an average of 31 per cent in the past three years, despite putting several measures in place to address the challenge.
During the meeting it was disclosed that almost 4000 specialized (iTRON) meters would have been installed, almost 30,000 defective meters replaced, 61,000 illegal connections removed and another 47,000 investigations among other initiatives.
Dindyal told members of the public that now that the power company has addressed in a great deal, power generation, “our major focus has to be loss reduction.”
In firing back at critics who have argued that the power company should not be receiving any government subsidy until it reduced its losses, asked “how are we going to reduce the losses.”
He said that talking to people and appealing will not work and that the power company will have to adopt a technological approach to curb with the losses.
“We have designs now for our distribution network which is considered fool proof…we have designs for a metering system which is the most advanced in the world.”
He said by the end of the year the power company would be in possession of the first 2,000 meters and they will be deployed.
“It’s not that we don’t know what to do, it’s not that we not doing anything about it…there is a solution, there’s a technological solution and what we need is money in large quantities.”
According to Dindyal curbing losses needs money “in the tens of millions of US dollars.”
Dindyal said that in a few short years the power company would not be in the same state that it is now.
“From a political standpoint we could be criticized to hell, people could call us anything, you know why, we are on our knees, we are in a hole,” said Dindyal.
Deonarine in weighing in on the state of the art meters that the power company is looking to launch said that to equip the entire country the power company would require about US$48M.
“It’s not like you can say take a US$2M and start this…it doesn’t work because the infrastructure we have to put in place is about US$10M,” said Deonarine.
He said that the cost of the actual meter is comparable with similar types across the world but the infrastructure to get the programme up and running is costly.
He said that the two factors currently crippling the power company is extremely high fuel price and “losses must be reduced…Yes the will is there, the technology is there, we know what to do but one thing is missing, cash.”

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