Turkish company seeking USD $116M to supply 60MW to GPL  

Sep 19, 2024 News

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– company says move aimed at stabilising grid for Christmas, CPL

Kaieteur News – The Guyana Power and Light (GPL) is going full speed ahead in making preparations to stabilise the country’s electricity supply in time for the Christmas season as power demand is expected to increase significantly.

Chief Executive Officer of GPL Kesh Nandlall told this publication that while there are constant efforts to stabilise the grid, “It is a moving target, we have maintenance work to do so we are preparing ourselves for all of that. We are making preparations to be as stable as we can.”

He explained that the additional 60 MW of power the government is seeking is to “prepare us from now to the new Gas to Energy availability and we have certain engines that are under overhaul and they are coming up live as we move along, and they are gonna be added to the system. (The engines) are under maintenance right now but we want to prepare ourselves from now to then which includes the Christmas holiday and every other thing.”

On September 4^th 2024 the GPL published an advertisement on its Facebook page inviting qualified bidders to submit proposals for the “Supply of 60MW Net Power Generation Baseload Capacity to the DBIS through Power Purchase Agreement”. On Tuesday the bids were opened at the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) and Karpowership who already has an ongoing contract with Guyana submitted their bid along with four other bidders.

VAS Energy submitted a bid to supply a total of 66MW of power for USD $61500 000, Andalusian Energy LLC submitted a bid to supply 60MW of power for USD $47, 650 000, JP Energy Solutions submitted their bid to supply 60MW of power for USD $37 740 480, Machinery Corporation of Guyana (MACORP) submitted their bid to supply power at $0.0645 USD per kilowatt hour and Karpowership Global DMCC Urbacon Trading and Contracting Inc submitted their bid to supply 60MW of power for USD $ 116 388 864. Back in May 10^th, 2024 this publication had reported Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo saying that the Government of Guyana (GoG) was still looking for an additional 30 MW of power to add to the grid. He made the disclosure that the government is still actively seeking additional power, similar to the arrangement that was signed with the Turkish company for two years, until the Wales West Bank Demerara Gas-to-Energy (GTE) project comes on stream.

Meanwhile, even as GPL is seeking another power purchase agreement, Guyanese are still in the dark over true cost of power ship. Jagdeo had accused Opposition Member of Parliament (MP) David Patterson of misleading the nation when he suggested that it will cost Guyana more than US$200M to utilise the power ship for the two-year period. 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.

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.  “When you add the two (fuel cost and the cost for rental), it comes up to nearly 0.20 something cents nearly 0.30 cents per Kilowatt hour,” Jagdeo said. The contract GPL signed with Urbacon Concessions Investments, W.L.L (UCI) to charter the Turkish vessel with a total installed capacity of 36 Megawatts (MWs) for a period of two years includes the provision of operation and maintenance services. The contract requires GPL to pay UCI a fee of 6.62 US cents per kWh as a monthly charter fee for the power ship and a monthly operation and maintenance fee of 0.98 US cents per kWh, based on electricity generated. The cost however excludes the price for fuel because according to the contract Guyana will still have to supply the power ship with fuel in addition to the agreed sum to charter the vessel.

Additional stress

Only last week the PNCR said that the country approaches the season of the year which typically puts additional stress on the nation’s electricity grid, GPL’s statements and actions raise serious concerns about its ability to meet demand. “For the company to say that it is seeking an additional 60MW for the Caribbean Premier League (CPL) and Christmas, when the former is already upon us, smacks of desperation and a total lack of planning. Even further, the latest company bid statements indicate that this power onboarding process will not conclude until October 17, when new power generation will come online. Since the tournament concludes in early October, this means that GPL will miss the CPL surge in electricity demand altogether, even in the best case scenario. Sadly, Guyanese must therefore brace themselves for the possibility of power cuts during the event,” the party said in the statement.

According to the PNCR this continues to be this government’s legacy of chaos and brinkmanship when it comes to the management of the nation’s electricity needs. “Time and time again we have been told that this solution or that one will stop the blackout crisis, but it has continued to march on. We also note that the onboarding of power has proven to be a laborious, uncoordinated process under the PPP.  It took several months for the used generator sets the government bought last year to be prepared to begin working, resulting in the government missing the entire Christmas season. Given those generators were purchased around this time last year, we are concerned that any lengthy installation process may mean that once again their promise to meet Christmas demand will be a hollow one.”

Similarly, the PNCR said the “so-called power ship faced connection delays and the declared need to combat “vultures” before it could operate. Whatever the government’s plans is to onboard more power, we urge them to make them public so Guyanese can have confidence that everything is being done to avoid similarly ridiculous delays. There is no excuse for such incompetence when the government surely knows in advance the demands of the CPL and Christmas seasons. The PPP’s poor planning has created, and is now perpetuating, a needless, preventable blackout crisis.”

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• 60MW, Christmas, GPL, grid, stabilize

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