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GPL to establish control centre at Eccles
Kaieteur News – The Guyana Power and Light (GPL) Inc. is presently working to establish a national control centre in Eccles, East Bank Demerara, Region Four, where the present isolated systems located in Essequibo and Linden would be integrated into the new national grid.
Chief Executive Officer of GPL, Mr. Bharat Dindyal
This is according to the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the power company, Mr. Bharat Dindyal. He made the announcement last Thursday during an Energy Roundtable Discussion hosted by the American Chamber of Commerce and Industry (AmCham) Guyana, under the theme: “Advancing Opportunities in Renewable Energy”.
In addition to the improved national grid, the CEO said that the substation will receive power from the Wales Gas-to-Energy project, as well as electricity from the Amaila Falls Hydropower Plant.
He explained, “The power from the 300 MW (megawatts) will be transmitted from Wales to a new substation at Eccles via 230 kilovolts transmission lines…we hope eventually that the 230 KV (kilovolts) transmission would be extended from Eccles actually up to Williamsburg on the Corentyne.”
“The hydropower connection will be from Amaila Falls to the Eccles site so there is gonna be an interconnection of 230 KV with the hydro, the gas to power, major substations in Demerara, East Berbice and of course West Demerara,” Dindyal added.
The new system, according to him, will not only see power being dropped off in Georgetown, but also in Berbice and on the West Coast of Demerara.
GPL is also aiming to have the new “state of the art system” include all of its isolated systems in Leguan, Wakenaam, Bartica and even Linden integrated into the national grid.
The CEO said, “Apart from this, we are currently working on the smart grid proposal and this is gonna see the automation of the entire system. We are gonna have transmission automation, distribution automation, generation automation, automatic generation control, metering would be fully automated and integrated with our master scanner. There is gonna be a new national control centre at Eccles that is gonna manage the entire system.”
He told the panel that the adjustments will improve the quality of power as specific investments will be made in this area to develop voltage regulation and monitoring of the entire system. “We are going to have the ability to simulate the system in different configurations and determine what is the best configuration to ensure security and stability of the entire system,” the GPL Head noted.
He was keen to note, however, that the improvements will not happen in the next five years, but rather in about seven to eight years.
The CEO said, “There is a lot of investment that is needed in the sector, to fix generators, to fix transmission, to fix distribution and of course now we are talking about automation. The build out of the system basically to make modern electricity standards require quite significant investment…and to fix the equipment and the tools and the training that is required to manage this modern system is an enormous investment and currently it stands at over US$3 billion. That requires inputs to the extent of about $1.5 billion in generation and the two projects that I mentioned would be the foundation of the system in the foreseeable future.”
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