CHIEF Executive Officer of the Guyana Power and Light Inc., (GPL) Bharat Dindyal, revealed on Friday that the power company presently suffers a loss of G$2B annually from electricity theft, even as the demand for electricity continues to grow. Speaking after a recently concluded Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) workshop, Dindyal said it was revealed that the Dominican Republic suffers from electricity theft as GPL does in Guyana. This, he said, shows that when power companies raise the bar, people tend to improve on the systems they are employing to steal electricity.
He explained, “People are actually going all out, including using cutting edge technology, to steal electricity. And some of the most sophisticated methods are used in the Dominican Republic to steal electricity; but, locally, we don’t have much of that problem. But taking on board their experience, we would be in a position to vastly improve what we are doing.”
Dindyal added that there are particular areas in Guyana where people have no intention of paying for electricity consumed. And despite the fact that GPL has spent tens of millions of dollars to provide this commodity to them, they refuse to come into GPL’s legal services, but persist in stealing electricity directly from the network.
The GPL official noted that the entity has looked at the designs implemented in the Dominican Republic, which are flagged proof and designed in such a way as to be dangerous and impossible to steal electricity from. GPL will be implementing some of those systems in Guyana in selected areas where at minimum people are determined to steal electricity.
He stated that GPL has been alerted to the impact of the Social Management Plan in dealing with loss reduction, and he admitted that GPL previously did not place much emphasis on that plan, but the entity will set up a unit in which public relations strategies will play a part.
Dindyal told the Guyana Chronicle that, from the workshop, GPL has learnt that, overall, the Dominican Republic is taking a highly technological approach in dealing with the problem by using state-of-the-art metering infrastructure, so personnel from that country’s electricity company are able to sit in their offices and see in real time what is happening.
He pointed out that those personnel can see who are the culprits stealing electricity, and the system shows their losses as well as their consumption; but he noted that the systems are very expensive, and GPL currently does not have the resources to implement the systems; nevertheless, it is something the company is looking at seriously in combating electricity theft.
Dindyal said that the Dominican Republic suffers losses of  US$18M; locally, it is almost US$2B, but  GPL is better prepared and hoping for results, with an estimated loss to electricity theft at G$2B annually.

GPL improvements
The GPL official said that the company is looking at modernisation in terms of improved services, with the Chinese loan of US$40M which will see the completion of the transmission between Demerara and Berbice; and, within the next five years, GPL is expected to integrate the Essequibo systems, at least Leguan, Wakenaam and Anna Regina, into the national grid.
He said, “GPL is building a fibre-optic network and a control centre in which would be installed a sophisticated computerized system that would allow personnel to manage the grid automatically by 2015 in preparation for hydro power.
Dindyal indicated that it is GPL’s aim to automatically manage all systems. Except for line maintenance outages, consumers will see a vastly improved quality of service, and dramatic improvement in quality voltage in peak periods in Georgetown, West Coast and East Coast, East Bank Demerara and Corentyne, Berbice.
He said that, by June 2013, the project is expected to be completed, and incremental improvements will be seen in West Coast Demerara with the commissioning of new sub-stations which will reassign loads to new feeders. Having a centralized automated system in place to prevent incidents of systems shutdowns, and also improvements in Berbice in terms of power supply, all Berbice will benefit from the Demerara link system, and shutdowns in that county, as they are experiencing presently, will be a thing of the past.
Dindyal told the Guyana Chronicle that the Dominican Republic systems are more advanced: that country has a robust growth, hydro power, and rely heavily on power producers; but in Guyana, with the commissioning of 15.6MW at the Kingston Plant, only the power loads in Demerara have been satisfied. Guyana has to invest locally in generation, as there is continuous economic growth and this is to keep abreast with demand in preparation for hydro power.
Dindyal stated that Berbice has a peak of 19.1Megawatts (MW), which is a new record. Demerara has a peak of 79MW, a new record also, and with this current heavy demand, he encouraged consumers to use energy saving appliances, to switch off and unplug all appliances, and to conserve on electricity in their homes, since it is possible to have a modern life without leaving a heavy carbon footprint.

IDB workshop
The GPL CEO said the company has recently concluded a three-day workshop facilitated by the Inter-America Development Bank (IDB), and the company has had access to five experts working in the Dominican Republic in loss reduction, and those experts detailed a problem similar to  what GPL  experiences  where overall losses are concerned.
He added that GPL’s overall losses are just above 30% presently, and in the Dominican Republic the losses are 36%, and that country has three distribution utilities there. He opined that, in that case, the Dominican Republic’s overall loss is 58.8%, although in other instances they suffer over 45%. So that country has a major problem and has commenced a major project to try to deal with its technical and non-technical losses.
Dindyal noted that GPL expects to spend US$296M on the programme; and to manage it, the company has engaged the services of the consultants from the Dominican Republic. Accordingly, IDB has approved a US$5M loan to GPL to deal with loss reduction, but most of this money would go towards technical loss reduction and for public education.
He stated that, over a three-day period last week, GPL had presentations from the foreign experts in assessing the problem and finding solutions. GPL took the consultants to some site visits to look at some situations on the ground.
Dindyal pointed out that, last week also, GPL received from the consultants a number of recommendations on how GPL could improve on what it was doing, all the presentations were done in Spanish, but the company is in the process of translating them by means of a few Cuban engineers in its employ.
He revealed also that the IDB will fund a visit to the Dominican Republic, to facilitate a GPL team to get a first hand look at what is happening on the ground there.