Latest update September 15th, 2026 10:20 AM
GPL promise enough power for Christmas
(Kaieteur News) – Faced with an extraordinary growth in demand for electricity due to the prolonged dry season being experienced globally, the Guyana Power and Light Inc (GPL) has been racing to add more generators to the national grid and run additional transmission lines to supply power to customers.
The increased usage of electricity has led to a series of trips in the Demerara Berbice Interconnected System (DBIS), leaving Guyanese without power for hours in some instances but GPL does not anticipate this to continue heading into the Christmas season.
As explained by the Minister of Public Utilities and Aviation, Deodat Indar who holds responsibility for GPL, the increased usage of power is due to the hot season. The scorching heat has forced Guyanese to purchase air conditioning (AC) units for their homes, but the Christmas season is likely to bring cooler weather as the rains will step in, according to the minister. This means that although twinkling lights will illuminate houses across the country as per tradition, the cooler weather will prompt citizens to switch off their ACs, allowing GPL to supply enough power needed during the holidays.
Minister of Public Utilities and Aviation, Deodat Indar
Minister Indar explained, “Normally although Christmas time they have a lot of lights, place is be rainy. People don’t put on the AC and the rest of the thing so the demand generally when we check historically, has actually dipped in December.”
He went on to point out the reason for the sudden jump in the demand for electricity in Guyana. “So, it is the hot season between August to October and this time it’s the hottest on record, this is an El Nino season. It’s even hotter than the usual August and the usual September. It’s gonna be much hotter and you’ve seen this happening across the globe. You’ve seen it happening all over.”
Indar was at the time responding to a question from Kaieteur News on whether GPL would be able to meet the demand for electricity in December during the Christmas season. The question came following an announcement by the power company at a recent press conference that the growth in demand for electricity has triggered country-wide blackouts as the power lines face tremendous strain to supply communities with more than the usual demand.
At that forum, government urged consumers to employ energy-saving techniques to help maintain a stable distribution of power.
In an appeal to household customers, Indar said, “We are also asking the general public to look into ways in which they can conserve the uses of energy, if they have lights that they are not using, unnecessary equipment that is being used, that are not critical to them and any other thing that they can do in the household or in their businesses.”
Government also pleaded with large customers with self-generating capacity to come off the grid during peak hours, usually between 7pm to 9pm , so as to provide stable power across the DBIS.
Peak demand exceeded
At last month’s press conference, the minister detailed a demand of 242.64 megawatts (MW), the highest on record since the grid was formed. This is a 21.6MW growth from last year where the peak demand was 221 MW.
Be that as it may, he assured that while there is enough power being generated to meet the demand on the DBIS, the issue is now the transmission and distribution lines that in many cases cannot accommodate the high demand for electricity in some areas, resulting in power outages.
According to the minister, “…what is happening now is because the overall demand is raising, it is putting pressure and the thermal limits of some of these feeders are causing these trips.”
GPL has commenced work to run additional lines to supply areas with power.
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INDAR’s thought process is Long Term. He thinking already of Christmas Lights,
black/rum cake, Father Christmas, just over 3 months away.
Instead of Short Term needs, like right now.
Indar is correct – El Nino is all over the World.
But, it does not affect other countries Electric Grid.
They can still run their HVAC, A/C, electrical appliances 24/7-no restrictions.
Advise to Indar. CANADA has surplus electricity to sell.
He should think seriously how to transport it to Guyana, if interested.