GEORGETOWN, Guyana, CMC – The Guyana government has promised to “fix” the issues affecting the country’s leading electricity-generating company, resulting in prolonged power outages in recent weeks.
President Ali said while efforts are underway to increase power generation, he believes companies not previously on the national grid have returned to it, thereby putting a strain on the Guyana Power and Light’s (GPL) capacity.
In his address, President Ali said relief is expected by mid-December, ahead of the highly anticipated Christmas holidays.
“We’re going to fix it. Every challenge will be addressed,” Ali said, adding that the expectation is that 30mw of additional power will be added to the system by mid-December as the government imposes new measures to get significant users of electricity to go back to self-generating, at least during peak hours.
“We want to encourage the high volume consumers to return to self-generation between 1.00 p.m. and 3.00 p.m. and between 6.00 p.m. and 10.00 p.m. so that we will not have outages to residential communities. If we have 15 to 20 of the large consumers self-generating during this period, that will give us back that room to avoid the outages we have now,” Ali said in his address.
Last week, the GPL called on consumers to adopt conservation practices as the utility company registered its highest-ever electricity generation and demand. In a statement, GPL said it recorded a peak demand of 182 megawatts(MW) compared to 154 MW for the corresponding period last year.
“To cushion the effect of this situation, GPL is seeking the support and cooperation of our customers in adopting conscientious electricity conservation practices,” the GPL said, urging consumers to use LEDs that consume “significantly less electricity and generate less heat.”
In addition, factories, manufacturers “and other large customers” are being asked to “manage their production schedules efficiently to conserve electricity,” housewives are urged to schedule laundry and ironing on one day instead of multiple days.
President Ali appealed to the population for understanding and patience while explaining the issues that have resulted in daily power outages across the country.
He said the first issue was unnecessary time and resources being invested in the last three years to upgrade the electricity network that was neglected by the former administration, where there needed to be more investment in expanding and building additional capacity to meet the increasing demand.
He said the government has found itself in a situation where it is swimming against the tide as it looks to make up for lost time.
“This is why gas-to-energy and hydroelectric projects are so important,” Ali said.
The government said that the Wales Gas-to-Energy project would add a capacity 300mw to the system and had the Amaila Falls Hydro Power Project come on stream as anticipated in 2013. There would have been an additional 165mw of power currently available.
Ali said that within the coming weeks, the government will seek new expressions of interest for the Amaila Falls Hydro Power Project.
With the subsidization of electricity and the return of large and once self-generating consumers to the grid, the government will seek to impose a minimal tax as it encourages a return to self-generating during peak hours.
He said if those high-volume consumers remain on the GPL grid, they will face an additional cost of 10 cents per kilowatt hour during the peak demand hours.
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