GPL unable to guarantee no ‘black-outs’ for Christmas Season

Dec 10, 2021 News

Kaieteur News – The Guyana Power and Light (GPL), company is the key provider of electricity for the bulk of the Guyanese population and while the company insists it will have sufficient generation capacity in its system, it is unable to give a guarantee that there would be no power outages—blackouts—for the 2021 Christmas holiday season.

GPL’s CEO, Bharrat Dindyal (right) and Bharat Harjohn, the entity’s Divisional Director of Operations

This is since the Demerara Berbice Interconnected System (BDIS), which is the country’s primary transmission and distribution network for power put into the grid, is in a fragile state, leading to power outages for reasons ranging from heavy winds to an errant driver.
The sentiments were expressed by the utility company’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Bharrat Dindyal, and GPL’s Divisional Director of Operations, Bharat Harjohn.
The GPL CEO did, nonetheless, laud the improvements to the system; as a result of investments there has been some improvement in the network over the previous year when he arrived at the entity.
He identified specifically, the “behaviour and performance of the network,” saying “I think we have improved on the performance in the network.’
Dindyal was quick to point out, however, that there is still more work to be done with regard to the network.
Speaking to some of the investments made in the network over the past year, Dindyal said, “we had to essentially reorder the system,” in order to accommodate some of the technical components installed.
Speaking to some of the problems that GPL and its team would have to encounter, Dindyal pointed out that in excess of 40 megawatts of generating power is sited at a location that is not secure.
He was at the time referencing the Garden of Eden, East Bank Demerara (EBD) power generating units, which he said can be seen, always, as a potential stabilizer in the network or equally, a potential source of trouble.
The GPL CEO also conceded that Guyana has what is described as an inertia system, meaning it is unable to withstand, “heavy shocks.”
He explained some more, by saying, “somebody hit a pole at a bad location, the entire system could collapse, the system is not resilient enough, our machines are basically medium speed diesel engines; we don’t have any heavy duty generating equipment that has the level of inertia to keep the system stable despite any major fault.”
Speaking to future investments meant to remedy the state of affairs, Dindyal said, “…some of these things would be addressed in our development plan, where we are proposing to use equipment that would bring stability and security to the system.”
According to Dindyal, “apart from overcoming the challenges of available generation, (and) available network capacity; we are looking to see where we can reorder the system so that its security is secure.”
GPL’s Divisional Director of Operations, Harjohn, in responding specifically to the likelihood of power outages, reiterated the position of the CEO with regard the security of the system, and also cited as example a vehicular accident, involving one of the power company’ main utility poles.
He was adamant, from a generation standpoint, there is enough reserve capacity, but there is another complication, meaning, the location of the generating capacity, compounded by the limited distribution lines.
Harjohn in adumbrating the position noted, as an example, the 46 MW generating capacity installed at Garden of Eden.
This, he said, has to be fed to the Sophia substation before being transmitted east along the ECD, to Berbice.
“So if our transmission line fails for some reason in bringing that power to the control centre to Sophia for distribution, we will have a challenge,” he said.
Highlighting the challenges relative to the transmission capacity, there are only two lines delivering power to Sophia, while there is only one to connect to Berbice.
As such, “if something should happen along that path there—for example on the L-16 transmission line from Sophia to Good Hope—if something should hit the pole along the railway embankment there, we will lose all power going up there; that’s how unstable the system can be.”
Other reasons cited for possible power outages included sagging power lines that can connect during high winds and heavy rains.
The power company officials are nonetheless confident that, despite there being no guarantees in relation to power outages for the Christmas Holidays, there is sufficient base load generation capacity, and it would not be a case where the utility company would likely have to rent additional capacity, as had been done in previous years.
According to CEO Dindyal, “in terms of outages we don’t see an exposure on the generation side, of course the network side, we can always have an exposure.”
He quipped “there is only so much we can do” and emphasized the need for emergency response teams to be in place should the need arise.”