…wishes customers a bright Christmas
Guyana Power and Light has issued the following statement:
GPL wishes to assure its customers that its generation capacity has been boosted by the completion of the new 20.7 MW Wartsila plant at Kingston, which was commissioned by His Excellency, President Bharrat Jagdeo on Friday, December 4th. This 20.7 MW plant adds to the already installed 44 MW of Wartsila, bringing the total installed Wartsila plants in Demerara to 64.7 MW. All of these engines are working and supplying power into the grid presently. As the CEO Bharat Dindyal, stated at the Commissioning service, one of the three sets was awaiting replacement of a component which had failed during the running-in process. That unit is now in operation a few days ahead of the date then anticipated.

GPL considers its generation capacity adequate to supply its demand. However, as a result of demand growth in West Demerara, GPL transmission lines are insufficient to fully meet peak demand; this problem is being addressed by the movement of 2 Caterpillar sets to Leonora which are expected to be operational early next week.

GPL generation situation in Berbice is adequate with supplies from Skeldon, Canefield, and Onverwagt. However, there is a tight margin at peak. GPL is currently relocating 2 Caterpillar sets from Georgetown to Berbice to provide an adequate reserve margin.

As GPL has stated earlier, the company is refurbishing its Canefield Station to end up with two refurbished Mirrlees 5MW generator sets converted to heavy fuel oil. Components were bought from Suriname for this reconditioning.

GPL expects customers to have adequate generation capacity for Christmas. However, GPL wishes to advise customers that due to limitations and the age of portions of its transmission network and frequency converters at Sophia, there is a risk that outages could occur. If these occur, their duration should be short.

In 2010, work will start on a US$38M transmission project to be completed over 30 months, with funding by the Government via a loan from the Chinese Export/Import Bank. This project would improve the quality of electricity supplied and allow GPL to utilise reserve generation from any of its generation location in Demerara and Berbice.

GPL takes this opportunity to wish all of its customers a bright and merry Christmas.