Guyana’s long-term energy plans are missing in action

Jan 08, 2024 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Kaieteur News – Guyana has plans to be a global leader in energy. Yet, it has failed to conduct a proper assessment of its long-term energy needs and the means through which these needs are going to be met.

If Guyana cannot supply itself with enough energy for its own domestic needs, then how will it become a global energy player? And what is to become of its plans to form an energy corridor with Brazil, Suriname, and French Guiana, ostensibly to allow Guyana to export some of its supposed surplus energy.

For all the bluster about energy security, Guyana is now energy insecure. During the latter part of 2023, Guyanese consumers were subjected to extended periods of power outages. This forced the government to import generators for the shortfall and to threaten large power users, who had returned to the grid, with higher than usual tariffs.

With great fanfare the government had announced plans to add an additional 500 Mw of power to the system. This was supposed to include generating 300Mw from the gas-to-shore and gas to energy project, 165 MWs from the beleaguered Amaila Falls Hydroelectric Project along with other smaller solar and other alternative energy projects.

Supposedly these plans would provide an energy mix, including the use of transitional fuels and allow the country to cut emissions by about 70% by 2030. It would presumably allow the country to have energy security and even to support the energy security of the Caribbean while being part of an energy corridor plan which had been proposed in an IDB study.

Consumers were promised reliable and cheaper energy. It was even estimated that energy costs would be slashed by some 50% and this would, in turn, spur greater manufacturing activity.

Today, a different tune is being sung. We are now being told that because of the exponential growth in energy demand, even after the flagship gas-to-energy project is completed, Guyana would have to look to other energy generation to meet its growing demand.

One therefore must ask that when the government was undertaking its plans for the development of an additional 500MW of power, did it not cater for this exponential growth in the demand for energy? Or was its energy plans developed as mere projects without any proper consideration of the long-term domestic energy needs of the country? And if so, how then could the President of Guyana be indicating that Guyana will lead by having one of the most ambitious energy transitions in the world – delivering cheaper, cleaner energy for its people.

The recognition that Guyana may need to develop new generating sources of energy, even after the gas to energy plant is commissioned, is an indication that Guyana has failed to undertake a proper assessment of how it will satisfy its future energy demand. In the Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS), it was estimated that the peak demand for the Demerara-Berbice Interconnected System (DBIS) would have been increased from 135.7 Megawatts (MW) as at 2021 to 407MW by 2025. The planned investment in adding an additional 500MW would therefore have catered for the short term.

But what about the long-term? It is not as if the government had not projected for an increase in demand. By 2041, the government estimated that the peak load in the DBIS would have been around 1,881 MW. But it has no plans beyond the 500MW which will only meet the peak load up to 2028.

From thence onwards the government plans are vague. In the LCDS, the government says that it will meet expanded electricity demand from 2028 to 2032 by replacing heavy fuels, expanding wind and solar power and from a second unnamed and unknown hydroelectric project. The LCDS is even vaguer as to what happens after 2032, suggesting that expansion would be determined by prevailing market conditions – a euphemism for saying that we will deal with that problem when we get to it.

The APNU+AFC had developed a Green State Development Strategy (GSDS) which was equally vague in terms of the projects that would drive renewable energy development. But in terms of energy security, the GSDS was far more advanced in its planning since it was based on the country moving towards 100% renewable energy sources using the country’s natural capital. To meet the country’s energy needs, the GSDS projected the use of a mix of hydro- and solar power, biomass and wind energy sources in order to reach 63% renewable energy by 2035.

In effect, Guyana has no precise and developed medium or long-term plans for meeting its energy needs. And Vice President Jagdeo, who seems to be leading everything these days and who is obsessed with projects, does not seem to have his radar set beyond 2028.