Submarine cable goes down; GPL rents Caterpillar set for West Bank

Sep 09, 2017 News

The Guyana Power and Light (GPL) Inc. says it is renting a 1.6 megawatt Caterpillar unit which became available from MACORP, to address the electricity supply interruptions along the West Bank Demerara. This is because of a damaged submarine cable.
While GPL did not say, the submarine cable is reportedly located along the Craig Village area, East Bank Demerara. It is an old cable.
Just over two years ago, Guyana commissioned a new cable, between Kingston, Georgetown and Vreed-en-Hoop, West Bank Demerara. That cable was not laid properly and was damaged under unclear circumstances.
GPL has been facing problems bringing power from its new power station at Vreed-en-Hoop to Demerara as part of the grid system that links Berbice as well. The new Kingston cable, built by Chinese contractor, CMC, is supposed to solve that problem.
It appears that the old cable at Craig was still in use by GPL to take power to certain parts of West Bank Demerara.
With regards to the Caterpillar set it is renting, GPL said that this unit will be installed and necessary modifications made to the network beginning today.
“Upon completion, there will be no need for load shedding during the hours of peak demand.”
GPL said that the modifications will necessitate some outages for West Demerara from 18:00hrs to 22:00hrs on the dates listed below:
Today: Aracari, Versailles, Bella Dam and Coglan Dam.
Tomorrow: Patentia, Vriesland and Sisters Village.
Monday: Phoenix Park; Goed Intent; Walcott Street, Pouderoyen.
GPL is under fire for numerous outages this year as it battles severe issues with its aging transmission and distribution system. It is running new transmission lines and installing new transmissions and meters, but citizens have been fuming at the daily outages.
The current project is being undertaken by the same CMC.

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