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GPL experienced nine total shutdowns in 2025
(Kaieteur News) – The Guyana Power and Light (GPL) Incorporated experienced nine total shutdowns in 2025, four of which were caused by external factors.
At a recent Public Utilities Commission (PUC) meeting, Commissioner Verlyn Klass asked about the number of outages and how they were handled.
Bharat Harjohn, the Deputy Chief Executive Officer Strategic Operations told the commission, “So in 2025, we had nine shut down. Nine shut down… so four was due to the external pockets where we have heavy duty lines.”
Bharat Harjohn, the Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Strategic Operations
Harjohn explained that it was recognised during configurations that the magnitude of the outages depend on how the electricity is transported. Giving an example, Harjohn said that from the Garden of Eden, there is a massive amount of power coming out with 46MW in addition to 22MW going through two lines all the way to the power station at Sophia.
“We found that in some of these major contingencies like the L1 to the L4 (lines) when they trip, they cause the system to stop…It causes an unstable situation, then affects the frequency, causing the frequency side to drop,” he said.
The Deputy Chief Executive Officer said that the system is not designed or set to respond to system collapses. As a result, in such situations the entire circuit cascades, causing a shut down. He explained that some situations can be controlled. So for major contingencies like the transmission from the Garden of Eden to Sophia, Kingston to Sophia and Sophia to Good Hope, which is the L16 line that transports power to Berbice, he said the company tries its best to manage the transfer based on the demand at the time.
“So we manage the transfer of all so in case we have any issue there, you don’t have this total collapse. Additionally, what we were looking at with the new substations that are coming, and with the new technologies, we have these digital release, and in particular, SEO release, and they are common with features that can allow us to introduce a remedial action scheme,” the deputy CEO said.
Harjohn said that this will provide an oversight of the protection system, whereby responses will be quicker, where 100 milliseconds will be given for decisions like automatic load shedding can be made to keep the system up and running. He said that with the transmission lines, redundancy will be given out and infrastructure wise the action scheme will be able to be reviewed so that supervision will be more in depth.
In November 2025, Kaieteur News reported that GPL signed contracts worth over US$235M to further advance works aimed at expanding and modernizing the grid.
The company, in an announcement its Facebook page said it signed a US$199 million (43 billion GYD) contract with Kalpataru Projects International Limited (KPIL), which was followed by a US$35.93 million (7.5 billion GYD) contract with China National Machinery Import & Export Corporation (CMC).
The contract with KPIL entails the execution of new substations as well as transmission and distribution lines which will lead to upgrades and expansions in the national grid. There will be the construction of 42 km of new 69 kV Transmission Lines, as well as four new 69/13.8 kV substations at, Kuru Kururu, Soesdyke; Williamsburg, East Berbice, Corentyne; Hydronie, East Bank Essequibo and Princes Street, Georgetown.
There will also be the “construction of a total 18 new primary distribution feeders for the new substations. Upgrade and expansion of the New Georgetown and Garden of Eden substations. These upgrades will replace outdated infrastructure, install modern electrical and automation systems, integrate SCADA/EMS technologies, and support remote operations from the new and modern Guyana National Control Centre (GNCC), currently under construction,” GPL said.
The contract with CMC will address the strengthening and expansion of the distribution network through the construction of more than 193 km of new distribution feeders with smart equipment, the supply of advanced smart distribution equipment and addressing the unserved areas in Demerara and Berbice.
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