Powership sails into Guyana

May 02, 2024 News

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– as GPL still fixing site, finalizing rental of barge

Kaieteur News – The Turkish Powership contracted by the government to supply Guyana with some 36 megawatts of electricity for two years, arrived on Wednesday.

The Guyana Power and Light (GPL) posted the news about the vessel’s arrival on its Facebook page without any additional details.  Karpowership will be station at Everton, Berbice, Region Six and will be interconnected with GPL’s Grid at 69 kV and is expected to start delivering electricity to the country by May 8, 2024.

A contract for the ship was signed between the GPL Inc. and UCI, a subsidiary of UCC Holdings, a company incorporated in the State of Qatar. UCC Holdings has a strategic alliance with Karpowership International, a Turkish company. President Mohamed Irfaan Ali had told reporters that contracting ship for a two year is feasible to end Guyana’s blackout crisis for now until the US$2 billion and counting Gas to Energy project comes on stream but to date Guyana remains in the dark over the true cost for electricity from the vessel.

Guyana had to pay a mobilization fee of US$1M to get the ship here and the contract, according to GPL, includes the provision of operation and maintenance services as part of the agreement. According to the utility company in a public missive yesterday, “the contract requires GPL to pay UCI a fee of 6.62 US cents per kWh as a monthly charter fee for the powership and a monthly operation and maintenance fee of 0.98 US cents per kWh, based on electricity generated.”

A 36MW capacity plant is expected to generate some 315,360,000-kilowatt hours per year, which would mean an annual bill $2,087,683,200. This in addition to the 0.98 US cents maintenance fee, will add an additional US$309,052,800, or cumulatively US$2,396,736,000.

This price however excludes fuel because based on the agreement signed Guyana will have to supply that too.  Member of Parliament David Patterson had claimed that based on his calculations it will end up costing Guyana someUS$0.30 cents per Kilowatt Hour.

Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo in response has accused Patterson of misleading the nation on the cost that will be accrued for the rental of the Turkish power ship. Notwithstanding Patterson’s calculations, Jagdeo did not provide a detailed account of what the country is really paying for the service, leaving Guyanese in the dark over the true cost. Jagdeo was at the time addressing reporters at his weekly press conference on Thursday.  “I just said that the fuel is US13 to US14 Cents per kilowatt hour (to supply the fuel) if you add to that the 7.6 cents per kilowatt hour, you are coming around to 21 or  22 cents per kilowatt hour which it costs to generate elsewhere too not 55 cents per kilowatt hour,” Jagdeo said. At a previous press-conference Jagdeo was pressed to provide the amount of money Guyana will be paying for the electricity from Karpowership International. Instead of giving a definitive answer, he said that it will cost the country nearly US$0.30 cents per Kilowatt Hour.

Site preparation

Meanwhile, the Department of Public Information (DPI) reported that significant site preparation work is currently underway in Everton, East Bank Berbice, Region Six for the operations of the ship. Zone Manager of the GPL Berbice location, Ravindra Jagnandan, visited the site on Tuesday to oversee ongoing preparatory works. In a recent televised interview, Jagnandan explained that major land clearing and installation of utility poles are in progress. “Firstly, what we are doing now to accommodate the ship, is land-clearing and vegetation management. We also have to build a network to connect the power barge to our network at GPL.

“The ship will be dispatching 69,000 kilovolts and so we have to construct a new transmission line for us to connect and dispatch power from the ship to our grid,” he elaborated. Currently, the GPL Berbice team is preparing to set up the transmission lines at Everton. Jagnandan further explained that to access electricity from the power ship to the Demerara-Berbice Interconnected System (DBIS), they will tap into GPL’s existing L21 transmission line. “Having the electricity at that voltage level (69,000 kilovolts), then we will be able to access power from the ship at our various load centres across Berbice and Demerara,” the manager noted.

He emphasised that the team is working diligently to complete the preparations and conclude the network construction and maintenance on the lines as early as possible before the ship’s arrival. Jagnandan highlighted that the country is currently experiencing frequent power outages due to a deficit between GPL’s generating capacity and the country’s growing electrical demand. Therefore, the arrival of this ship will form the basis of a proactive approach by the government to help minimize current disruptions.

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• Guyana Power and Light Inc., Jagdeo, President Mohamed Irfaan Ali, Turkish Powership

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