Upgrades to GPL grid for additional power to cost US$686 million

Nov 06, 2021 News

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Kaieteur News – The planned upgrade to the transmission and distribution grid for electricity currently generated by the Guyana Power and Light Incorporated (GPL), is estimated to cost some US$686M.

Vice President, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo during a press engagement had expanded on the need to improve the electricity distribution network to a smart grid in order to be able to absorb the expected additional power from a proposed Natural Gas Power Plant and the Amaila Falls Hydro Electric Project (AFHEP).
Dr. Jagdeo on Monday told reporters “we have a problem now with the grid and so we are now doing a study, so by next year we can have an overall improvement of the grid.”
He did not give details on the price tag for the proposed upgrades. A perusal of his administration’s expanded Low Carbon Development Strategy 2030 outline, however, noted that “GPL’s Development and Expansion Programme estimates the need for an investment of US$686 million over the next five years to upgrade, expand and equip the power system to take off and manage the forecasted electricity demand, and to provide services and operate at the required reliability levels of a modern power utility company.”
Dr. Jagdeo had told reporters, the administration has already mapped the electricity demands for the country over the coming five years and it is assumed that the demand will double in that time.As we had noted in our November 4th edition, the Vice President said that government would be installing triple the demand, and rationalized the position by saying “we assume that in the future when the power becomes more stable and the price is cut by half—which is our intention by 2024 as soon as the Gas to Energy Project comes on stream, to cut the price of electricity by 50 percent to business and consumers across Guyana—that a lot of the private generation capacity would go into reserve and people will come on to the grid.”The Expanded LCDS documents in its treatment of the Modernization of Transmission and Distribution (T&D) network, the manner in which it plays a critical role in power evacuation from power plants and delivery of electricity to customers across Guyana.
The electricity service provided to GPL customers does not meet the reliability and quality requirements of utilities in developed countries.
Moreover, it was pointed out that the low reliability is due to the low capacity of generation, the lack of redundancy in key lines, and the low remote supervision and control of the T&D network.
Elaborating some more, he said that “utilities have been increasing their generation capacity at the same pace as the demand has been growing, keeping a low reserve and excess capacity that is inadequate to cater for downtime in their generators,” the document said.
Projecting rapid growth in expected electricity demand over the next decade, the LCDS predicts “even with a conservative forecast, the demand in 2025 would be three times more the electricity demanded in 2020.”
The expansion on the firm capacity that is planned in the next decade with new power plants, using natural gas and renewable energy, will increase reliability and resilience to generate the electricity demanded at a much lower cost than currently; “but besides that, all the public grids will need important improvements in their T&D, which have been developed in a radial way and built with single lines, meaning that a failure in any of those single lines will disconnect customers connected downstream of the faulty line.”
It was noted that in order to increase reliability in the transmission network to world-class utility requirements, the new transmission lines and substations will be designed to comply with ‘N+1 redundancy criteria’ (with at least one back-up component).
Additionally, the transmission network will also “be expanded to form a real network, avoiding radial configurations where possible.”
Meanwhile as part of the T&D improvement programme, the existing lines and substations will be progressively upgraded to meet the new redundancy requirements.
On Monday, Dr. Jagdeo told reporters that when the 165MW power is delivered to the Sophia substation in Georgetown from the Amaila Falls Hydro Electric Project, coupled with the 250 MW to be generated from the natural gas fired plant at Wales, government is looking to ensure “that the grid can handle it, it’s stable and we don’t have all these blackouts.”
He hinted at a change out “of all the transformers” as part of stabilizing the grid saying, “that’s the next big thing we are working on.”
According to Vice President Jagdeo, the administration is pursuing the establishment of a smart grid, “so that when we have all this new power, that the grid can handle it; a stable smart grid…because fibre will be in all the electricity lines.”
As such, he posited that an individual from a control room would be able to “…know, without having to send a crew out and get a report when there is a power outage in any part of this country.”
He told media operatives that as it relates to the establishment of a smart grid the studies are presently being done.
The Vice President was adamant that a smart grid, once implemented efficiently, will help to reduce the technical and commercial losses experienced by the power company.

 

 

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