Jagdeo blames GPL’s management, old transmission lines for constant blackouts

Sep 20, 2024 News

---

Kaieteur News – Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo on Thursday blamed the management of the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) as well as the old transmission lines for the daily blackouts citizens are currently facing.

He was at the time speaking at his weekly press conference at Freedom House. “So, they are telling me that when they move some of these lines, it is causing instability in the system or they have to take off the power to move a bit of the line. So, some of that is happening, some of it is the old system and frankly speaking, we are not happy with the management too, look at what’s going on. So, it’s a combination of factors and it bothers me a lot personally too and we are on it every day as policymakers,” Jagdeo said.

The VP explained the he reached out to the management of GPL on Wednesday and they said that, “oh the system tripped in Berbice. Then they said some piling work has caused the blackout. So I am as concerned as any citizens because we are trying to get more power into the system but there is a lot of upgrade to the transmission and distribution system we have.”

Jagdeo lamented that the current state of the grid is not stable and the more power that is put into the system it will cause further instability, hence the reason the government has gone out to tender to have upgrades done. “We have just prequalified I think about 20 companies to do a significant upgrade before the Gas to Energy project comes on stream. That means redundancy, circuits…if you have a single line and it goes off, everyone down the line gets affected. If you have redundancy in circuits then you can continue to supply people. The demand now had skyrocketed with the hotels we have nine hotels being built already some coming on stream,” Jagdeo said.

Noting that a regular hotel may use about two megawatts of power, looking at “all the new housing schemes and houses being built, air conditioning and massive investments right across Guyana, the demand has skyrocketed and even for people who have higher income now, many of them are putting in AC’s etc. in their homes, so we are in a mad rush to keep pace until that big project comes on stream next year that will put 300 megawatts into the system.”

Furthermore, Jagdeo said government is focused on “a modernisation programme that’s taking place but we are limping along because we keep putting more power into the system and it gets used up all the time and we are running the same power on the old transmission and distribution system. So you have more transformers going out etc,” he added.

Chief Executive Officer of GPL Kesh Nandlall told this publication on Wednesday 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.

---

• blackout, GPL, Jagdeo, power, transmission

---