GPL satisfied with company that replaced Wartsila

Jul 31, 2017 News

Following the end of Wartsila’s tenure at the Kingston Generation plant in December 2016, government sought not to renew the contract and handed over the plant to a newly formed state company, Power Producer and Distribution Incorporated (PPDI).

GPL Board Chairman, Robert Badal

This was done last year. However, the Board of Directors for PPDI were installed earlier this year and the company became fully active.
Following that move, the Guyana Power Light (GPL) is satisfied with the transition process that has taken place. This is according to Chairman of GPL’s Board of Directors, Robert Badal.
In an interview, Badal said that so far there have been no problems with PPDI. “I think the transition has been properly planned and executed. The guys there are capable of running the plant because we haven’t had many blackouts because of downtime there.”
He said that GPL met with the PPDI team recently to ensure that issues are taken care of as they arise and that there is much information flow between the two entities. The Kingston plant supplies power to the GPL grid.
Further, he said that GPL does not have a seat on the Board of Directors for PPDI. To fix this, Badal said that he spoke to Minister of Public Infrastructure, David Patterson on the matter and that position will soon be appointed.
He said that GPL has the work-plan for PPDI so as to ensure that units are retired and others are serviced.
“So it’s going smoothly so far. When you look at the reports, we have been getting about 95 percent availability with PPDI there, with the units there. With some units like the older units it’s much less, but PPDI has been very reliable thus far. I don’t think we have executed any penalties so far with PPDI.”
However, Badal noted that there was one minor issue with the transition process. He said that there was some amount of servicing that was not done by WARTSILA that was supposed to be carried out and this placed some strain on the new company and GPL.
He said this is because GPL would have had to give PPDI the go ahead to do servicing or to change turbo motors when they are due and all this has to be scheduled.
In 2016, the Public Infrastructure Minister had said that PPDI will take over the operations and maintenance of the generation units that were once managed by Guyanese previously employed by Wartsila. Patterson had said that having the state company in place, it would save GPL a lot of money that it paid to Wartsila in the past.