ON Wednesday December 17, 2013, GPL’s personnel relations officer (PRO) assured Essequibians that there will be no more blackouts for the season as maintenance is finished and the outrages experienced recently was due to bad weather. The said day this article was published in the Stabbroek News, there were three blackouts, one at 10.30 am lasting until 1.00 p.m then went off and resumed at 3.45 pm; came off again at 10.30 pm in the night until morning.

On Sunday, December 22, 2013, at about 8.30 am the blackout came back again and lasted until 8.30 pm in the night, crippling the entire Essequibo Coast. This time there was no bad weather or heavy winds; all the businesses and petrol stations went down, because the fuel pumps depend on electricity from the plant which offers a crummy power supply and gets away with murder. GPL at Anna Regina has not made any strides; the company as a whole has many barriers to progress.
Perhaps, the most serious impediment is the huge amount of blackouts for this year which we in Essequibo face. While it is true that GPL and the Wartsilla power plants are facing a full range of unprecedented challenges and a desperate time,GPL will not get far without the assistance of skilled and professional engineers. The best prescription for economic slowdowns is to throw money in GPL; every megawatt of power lost creates unstable economic growth, and Region 2 depends on GPL’s ability to turn to sustainable and competitive energy.
Years of no maintenance to these Wartsilla engines and damage now pose a real and immediate threat to the future of GPL’s energy stability. The fact is, the power company has been producing less electricity than it’s been producing for years now. Not only has demand been soaring for more electricity because of the many new housing schemes, the region’s growing economic prosperity will take a lot more energy from every possible source. The energy industry needs to get more from existing sources while continuing to search for new reserves.
GPL must continue to improve power efficiency and government needs to create energy policies that promote economically and environmentally sound development.
Consumers must demand and be willing to pay for some of these solutions, while practising conservation efforts on their own. Inaction is not an option. But if everyone works together, we can balance the equation. We’re taking some of the steps needed to get started, but we need GPL’s help to get the rest of the way.

MOHAMED KHAN