Technicians retrieve damaged GPL submarine cable

Aug 24, 2016 News

-excess power from US$30M-plus West Dem plant continues to waste
Technical officials have retrieved a damaged submarine power cable linking the city and West Demerara, but it may be some time before the cable becomes operational again.

File photo: Work being done on the submarine power cable in the Demerara River.

The submarine cable is necessary for the critical sharing of power through the inter-connected system along the coastland stretching from Crabwood Creek, Corentyne, Berbice, to Georgetown and across the Demerara River to Parika, East Bank Essequibo.
Giving an update yesterday, the Guyana Power and Light Inc. (GPL) said that a team of its workers, with assistance from a number of submarine experts from China, retrieved the submarine cable from the Demerara river bed in order to assess the extent of the damage.
Since it became known that the cable was damaged on July 12th, GPL has blamed it on faulty connection, although the Chinese contractor, China National Machinery Import & Export Corporation (CMC), has insisted that dredging in the Demerara River was what damaged it.
Yesterday, the power company said it had conducted a comprehensive test on the cable subsequent to a total shutdown on July 12. The tests attributed the incident to faulty insulation at the connection or “Pot Head” linking the 69KV submarine cable to the overhead transmission lines at Kingston. The test obtained from the protective devices at GPL’s sub-stations at Kingston and Vreed-en-Hoop indicated damage to the cable.
According to GPL, an actual retrieval of the submarine cable from the Demerara River was necessary to determine the extent of the damage.
It is now being recommended that the damaged section of the cable be removed altogether and replaced, using a special submarine cable-joining kit which GPL is currently sourcing in order to bring the cable back into operation in the shortest possible time.
“In the interim, the company has confirmed that there is sufficient capacity within East Demerara and Berbice to meet the electricity demands of its customers,” GPL explained.
CMC, which has been facing questions over its work on a US$40M contract (which included the cable, seven substations and overhead transmission lines along the coastland), has been insisting that it followed specifications of the cable laying across the Demerara River.
“The submarine cable was put into operation since December 4, 2012 and abnormality has never been detected. As far as we know, the cable was damaged during the dredging operation in the evening of July 12. The non-service of submarine cable has nothing to do with the quality of the cable,” the Chinese company said in a statement.
The company had earlier tendered for another GPL project- a US$18M metering and upgrade project. While the tenders of that IDB-EU funded project have been opened since February, there has been little word on who won it, with contractors expressing frustration.
GPL itself has not said who is to be blamed for the damage of the cable.
With excess power being produced by the new US$30M-plus power facility at Vreed-en-Hoop, West Demerara, critics have blasted GPL for wasting money.
It is estimated that millions of dollars in excess power is lost from the generation by the Vreed-en-Hoop station because of the downed cable.
GPL has been under pressure to reduce its outages, with some of them coming at embarrassing times.
The submarine cable was part of a larger infrastructural work by GPL to improve its efficiency. It included, also, the building of seven sub-stations and stringing of miles of new transmission lines with fibre optic across the coastland.
GPL came under scrutiny recently, with Minister of State Joseph Harmon in responding to media questions, saying that he is of the view that a contractor’s track record must be an important consideration when evaluations are done. CMC’s handling of the sub-stations and transmission lines project had been cited.
Harmon said that anyone can submit a bid, but it is up to the evaluators to ensure that contractors with bad track records do not get the contract. He noted that when the documents come to Cabinet, it is for Cabinet to either object or give its no objection to the contract.

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