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GPL announces 10MW shortfall as Berbicians face rolling blackouts
By Leon Suseran
The Guyana Power & Light Inc (GPL) has announced a ten megawatt shortfall in generation capacity at its Canefield
GPL Berbice Manager, Ayube Bacchus
Power Station, Berbice’s main power-generating facility. Hence, daily and nightly rolling blackouts are once again the order of the day, bringing frustration and anger to countless Berbicians. On Friday, much of East Berbice was plunged into blackout for several hours, affecting businesses, commercial activities and of course, thousands of lives across the area.
Manager of GPL Berbice Operations, Mr. Ayube Bacchus, speaking to Kaieteur News about the issue, regretted the shortfall in generation capacity, but appeased Berbicians by saying that the company hopes to acquire additional Caterpillar sets from the capital city this weekend, bringing some sort of relief.
Bacchus revealed that one of the 5-Megawatt Mirrlees #1 Blackstone Generators is currently undergoing unscheduled maintenance, after “we got an indication that we have ‘first stage condition of bearing temperatures’, so we want to investigate that.” Additionally, that aging unit is “due for major overhaul as well.”
Work on the unit is not expected to finish for several months.
Compounding the loss of capacity is the fact that the other 5- Megawatt Mirrlees #2 Blackstone Generator is under routine planned maintenance, “and that is what really compounded the problem, because we have already stripped the second Mirrlees engine down and we have now commenced rebuilding, and that would take quite a while—maybe two months to bring back.”
“We have supporting generation from Onverwagt and from Skeldon, which we have benefitted from,” he asserted. Additionally, there are five 1.5 MW Caterpillar units, “currently taking up the shortfall.” An additional two 1.5MW sets will be sourced from the capital this weekend, “so with that 5MW that came off, we will replace that, so that shortfall will be back up by this weekend.”
Bacchus also revealed that recently, another 2.5MW of electricity has been injected into the Berbice Interconnected System from the Onverwagt Power Station on the West Coast of Berbice, “so there is an improvement…but with these other two Caterpillars coming in, it will bring us back into an even position where we will have a little bit of excess generation. But it’s mainly smaller units—maybe 8MW of a smaller capacity and that will suffice for the shortfall.”
The Manager, when asked if these smaller units can carry the base load burden for electricity demands in the Ancient County, said that, “they have been doing it…they are under severe pressure at this time, but we have to be careful with our maintenance.”
He could not reassure Berbicians that the long hours of daily and nightly blackouts will end, “but what we have lost in the unscheduled maintenance, we have replaced it.”
The official also revealed that the power supply in East and West Berbice, for the first time ever, is being boosted with electricity outside of the Berbice area. The Columbia Sub-Station in Demerara, he stated, has been powering Bygeval to Belladrum, West Coast Berbice with 3MW of power.
He revealed that about 7MW of power are being received from the Skeldon Sugar Factory.
“The power demand for Berbice has come down and that makes it a bit more manageable for us at this time. The daytime demand from Belladrum to Moleson Creek, is 11.5 MW, so what we are getting from Onverwagt, Canefield and Skeldon, gives us a sub-total of about 16.5MW for a 15.5MW demand during the peak periods, but that is why we want to bring in an additional two units to give us that margin of operational capacity, so when we take out units for maintenance, we have something to replace it.”
”I want to express our regrets to our consumers and we ask them to bear with us. We will come back with our normal generation supply sometime this weekend,” he stated. The official made an appeal for conservation of electricity, by “not using power-sucking devices and equipment, especially during these critical periods.”
Bacchus urged consumers, especially during the peak hour of 18:00 hrs- 21:00 hrs, “to take those equipment, appliances that they don’t need….to turn them off…washing machines, irons, microwaves—if they can avoid—I am not saying not to use them, but if they can plan it in such a way—they can do ironing earlier—the washing, perhaps, can be done away from the peak hours.”
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