The problem goes beyond the GPL

Apr 06, 2024 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Kaieteur News – No foreigner can fix GPL. We tried that in the past with IDB support; we tried that in the past with privatization. All attempts have failed.

In the meantime, while the country is being saddled with daily power outages, outages which appear to be a combination of breakdown of equipment and generation shortfalls, the narrative of the government is changing.

The government first claimed that the blackouts were as a result of the return of some large electricity users to the grid. This led to existing generation not meeting demand. Threats were even made that these persons would be charged a punitive tariff for returning to the grid. Then it was claimed that there has been an exponential increase in electricity demand and this has worsened an inherited situation in which no new investments in power generation by the APNU+AFC.

But even as it was saying there was no investments in generation were made between 2015 and 2020, the government was conceding that that the former government did install a small plant at Anna Regina. The government is now conceding further that the APNU+AFC did install additional generating capacity of around 14.2 megawatts at Canefield, Anna Regina and Bartica and that the said APNU+AFC had procured an additional 46.5 megawatts of generating capacity but that this remained uninstalled by the time the coalition demitted office.

The government has moved from saying that the APNU+AFC made no new investments in generating capacity to only a small plant in Anna Regina to now saying that more than 60 megawatts were procured but that the majority of this remained uninstalled by August 2020.

Throughout this shifting narrative, the PPP/C government has lamented that the present spate of blackouts would not have existed had the APNU+AFC not canned the Amaila Falls Hydroelectric Project. But that is mere speculation because there were serious concerns about the hydrology of the river that was supposed to supply the project with water. The PPP/C seems to be getting nowhere with the Amaila Falls Project.

In any event, the PPP/C came into office four months shy of four years ago and would have, soon after, been fully aware of the problems with generating capacity. It has had almost four years to fix the problem and it has not fixed it.

Last year, it hurriedly imported additional generating capacity which, shockingly, has not yet been fully installed. Who and what is responsible for this?

Now we are hearing about bringing in technical personnel to assist GPL. So is the problem management or is it generating capacity or is it both?

Bringing in technical personnel will not improve the situation if generating shortfall is the primary problem. You have to fix that. And if you cannot fix that then all the technical support will matter little. That technical support comes at a huge price tag. It would be much better for those sums to be invested in additional generating capacity.

The PPP/C government says it is on track with plans for the natural gas energy project that it launched. Incidentally, it was the APNU+AFC which came up with the idea of natural gas as a transitional fuel. The GSDS had touted natural gas is a cleaner and transitional energy source and could in the medium term, enable the country’s renewable energy transition as a cheaper base fuel (replacing HFOs).

Under the Green State Development Strategy (GSDS), there was the recognition that natural gas could supply around 200-300megwatts of power.  Despite adopting the APNU+AFC’s plans for the use of natural gas, the PPP/C government has however tried to shift the narrative concerning electricity plans.

Jagdeo continues to be childishly critical of the GSDS, refusing to accept that much of his government’s present plans, including the graduation to an energy mix are copycatted from the GSDS. The GSDS had a realistic graduation to renewables of 63% by 2035, far more realistic that the PPP/C’s present plans of reducing emissions in the electricity sector by 70% by 2030. Without the Amaila Falls Hydroelectric Project, Guyana will fall short of its nationally determined contributions under the UNFCC.

The PPP/C’s flagship hydroelectric project cannot be ready by 2030. In fact, it now appears comatose.

The PPP/C, therefore, has to cease this silly game of blaming the APNU+AFC for the present woes of the country. For almost four years now, it knew what it inherited. It has not fixed it and now the people of Guyana are reaping the results of that failure. Blaming the APNU+AFC is not going to fix the problem but neither will recruiting foreign technical personnel.

The problem goes beyond GPL. The problem is the absence of progress at the level of the government in meeting national electricity demand, present and future. For that, the PPP/C should look more closely at the very plan it dismisses – David Granger’s Green State Development Strategy.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of this newspaper and its affiliates.)

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• foreigner, Government, GPL, IDB, privatization

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