GPL considering three solar farms

Sep 12, 2017 News

It seems as though the Guyana Power and Light Company (GPL) is moving towards diversifying its energy supply to its customers by creating an energy mix. On Sunday, the power company advertised for Expressions of Interest (EoI)

GPL plans to improve its energy mix with three solar farms.

for the installation of three 3-MegaWatt capacity Utility Scale Solar Photovoltaic (PV) farms.
These facilities will be built in West Coast Berbice, East Bank Demerara and on the Essequibo Coast. According to GPL, it is a vertically integrated company where power generation is dominated by thermoelectric plants using heavy and light fossil fuel (HFO and LFO).
The company explained that it is the sole official supplier of electricity in Guyana with its franchise area encompassing the coastal plain of all three counties, Demerara, Essequibo and Berbice where there are power generation facilities at six locations.
The company said the total installed capacity of the company is 174.39MW and 121.99MW of that total is generated from HFO and LFO.
GPL said that the demand for electricity continues to rise at an average rate of 2.24 per cent to 4.13 per cent which results in a three per cent per annum increase of fuel consumption for the generation of electricity over the last five years.
“As a consequence of this heavy dependency of the electricity sector on imported fossils, fuel cost constitutes a significant portion of the production cost for electricity in Guyana and has a negative impact on current economic growth.”
The company recognised that the most competitive and abundant renewable resources in Guyana include hydropower, wind, biomass, municipal waste and solar systems.
“Guyana has substantial land space along the coastal plain, especially in the outskirts of major populated areas, such as Naarstigheid (West Coast Berbice, Region Five), Kuru Kururu (East Bank Demerara, Region Four) and Lima Sands (Essequibo Coast, Region Two). As such there is considerable scope for developing utility-scale Solar PV systems.”
The company said that these projects would ensure that GPL and Guyana are in a better position to reduce the harmful effects of using fossil fuel based power generation on the environment, while generating considerable economic benefits derived from the reduction of fossil fuel imports.
It was explained in the full page advertisement that bidders are being asked to express their interest in order to pre-qualify to bid for the development and operation of the three solar farms.
The company said that each project will involve the installation of the three systems and this will be done under a 20-year Build Own Operate and Transfer (BOOT) arrangement and the construction of associated substations and other related facilities for complete operation which will include generation and transmission of electricity to the national grid.
This EoI comes one week after GPL would have advertised for EoIs for the installation of a 50MegaWatt capacity dual fuel fired power plant to be located in or around Georgetown, East Bank Demerara or East Coast Demerara.
The dual system will be able to use HFO and Natural Gas which is expected to be extracted when Exxon Mobil begins production in 2020. Presently, GPL has in its cadre of generation sets, systems that can be converted to use associated natural gas.
These systems are being operated and maintained by Power Producers and Distributors Inc, (PPDI) the state-owned company that took over the operation of the Kingston, Vreed-en-Hoop and Garden of Eden power stations from Wartsila in January of this year.

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