This scourge has been continuing for far too long

Jun 10, 2018 AFC Column, Features / Columnists

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For at least two days last week, large parts of commercial Georgetown were plagued by blackouts. Standby power generators whirred and the traffic lights system went on the blink.
For many in our beloved Guyanese society, this scourge has been continuing for far too long. Old-timers say that the first indication that the system at the then Guyana Electricity Corporation (GEC) had started to develop major problems occurred one Old Year’s night around 1970-71 when the lights went out completely, killing most parties and functions ushering in the new year.
In recent weeks, the GPL, the successor company to the GEC, has been dishing out blackouts to various parts of the City, the coast, Demerara River bank areas and others, as it undertakes major maintenance works to cater for related development projects or as its system crashes.
And although the Company has definitely now developed the ability to properly forewarn consumers and subscribers about impending planned power outages, it is those that come upon patrons like the ‘Biblical thief in the night’, destroying programmes and plans of thousands that upset all and sundry. These breakdowns cause massive levels of aggravation to the citizenry as some plans have to be postponed when the lights go out for extended periods. Businesses lose money.
Going forward, it is clear that our main electricity provider would need all the help it can get, sooner rather than later, to improve its levels of efficiency. The transmission and distribution problems have bedeviled the utility for far too long. Guyanese have even made migration decisions because of blackouts.
Engineers in the know say that some of the main problems include the need for redundancy power line systems, better forward planning between the Company and agencies like the Central Housing and Planning Authority (CHPA) to cater new housing sub divisions, and the acquisition of equipment to cater for increased demands on the power grid.
Should one of the major power line systems go down in the current engineering set up, for example, it often carries large parts of the system or the entire one with it, resulting in total blackouts.
Engineers in the know say that there is urgent need for redundancy lines. If these are available, it would allow for areas with generating or transmission and distribution problems to be isolated while repairs are being undertaken, rather than affect the whole. The remainder of the grid would be largely unaffected.
Additionally, they say, there is need for a new generation of larger conductors and insulators to cater for increased load in the system from services being established in new housing schemes across the country. The old ones now being asked to carry increased load factors are under pressure and often conk out.
But the GPL needs a major infusion of hard American dollars. Albert Gordon, its new CEO says that the utility would need a whooping US$110 million to fix the shaky transmission and distribution network and other deficiencies. Infrastructure Minister David Patterson has vowed to take the matter in hand by asking his finance colleague, Mr. Winston Jordan to find the money to fix the GPL once and for all.
With the economy getting ready to switch to one dominated by oil and gas instead of the traditional pillars like gold, sugar, bauxite and rice, the need to fix the GPL becomes all the more important. And even if gas from offshore oil fields is brought ashore in the coming years to generate power for the GPL, consumers might still have to live with blackouts if transmission and distribution problems continue to bedevil the utility.
Mr. Gordon also said that nearly half of the generating capacity at the GPL will have to be replaced in the near future because of age. For last year alone, there were 25 total, complete shutdowns of the system.
No one, we are sure, wants persistent blackouts, high voltage surges and low voltage episodes to become a campaign issue in 2020. It could well be if the GPL is not fixed before that crucial issue of national importance. The time to act is now.
At his induction ceremony as CEO earlier this year, Mr. Gordon complained about the systems in place for power generation, transmission and distribution saying that substations are needed in the system to breakdown power produced directly from generators.
“That’s not how you configure a power system,” he said, noting that if a tree falls on a high powered line, it takes down the entire system. In other places, a redundancy system would be in place and subscribers would not even be aware that there was a problem in the system as the problem could be isolated until fixed.

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