THE Guyana Power and Light Company (GPL) yesterday commissioned a US$26 million 26 megawatt power plant at Vreed-en-Hoop, allowing West Demerara to be self-sufficient in generating capacity during times of maintenance when the transmission link with East Demerara has to be isolated.The achievement of commercial operation of the 26 megawatt Wartsila-built power plant marked another major milestone in a partnership with Wartsila, which spans more than two decades.

During this period, Guyanese have witnessed the installation of 110 megawatts of generating capacity in Region 2 (Pomeroon-Supenaam), Region 3 (Essequibo Island-West Demerara) and Region 4 (Demerara-Mahaica).

GPL Chief Executive Officer, Bharat Dindyal said since 2006 the utility has set a new record every year for power production, with a total increase of 34.2 percent over this period, moving from just over 595,000 Megawatt-hours (MWH) to almost 718,000 MWH last year.

The continued investment in new generating capacity, he said, serves to meet the ever-growing demand for power, while allowing GPL to remove old and unreliable capacity from service.

With the inter-connected system, electricity can be supplied at a more rapid speed if supply goes down in Berbice. Before, supplying electricity in a situation like this took about four to five hours, now it takes about 10 minutes.

President Donald Ramotar described the commissioning as a “happy moment”, noting that it was part of a series of initiatives to improve access and supply of electricity.

Recently, power stations have been commissioned at Leguan and Wakenaam, Region 3, allowing these two areas to enjoy a 24-hour supply of electricity for the first time.

This, he said, is a tremendous achievement by GPL, which is no stranger to harsh criticisms and has had its fair share of challenges to overcome.

Putting his statement into context, the President said if his memory serves him right, from 1964 to 1992, hardly a kilowatt of electricity was added to the system.

However, he noted that over the past two decades, more than 100,000 customers have been added to the national grid, with over 50,000 in the past 10 years.

“This is a great achievement by any standard,” he said, pointing out that investments in energy and electricity have always been Government’s foremost priority.

The latter, he said, was evident when former President, Dr. Cheddi Jagan, came into power, as the first public utility he visited was the Guyana Electricity Corporation.

“We cannot speak about social and economic development without looking after the energy sector. It is vital and indispensible in a modern society. Government is working with GPL to modernise and address issues in a number of areas, working to expand the generating fleet to ensure we have sufficient power to supply all those attached to the grid, to have an inter-connected grid that will allow power to be transmitted throughout the entire system to deal with the high level of technical losses.”

On this note, he said greater attention needs to be paid to education, contending that little do stealers of electricity know that apart from undermining the development of the country, they are undermining their own development.

He said too that while significant strides have been made to connect more people to the national grid, there are still a few villages which are yet to be connected, but they will be in due time.

This aside, he said the Government is looking to provide a steady supply of energy to the hinterland regions, using wind and solar technology.

In the next five year, the President said he would want to see significant development in solar energy, noting that his Administration is also willing to partner with others to build wind farms along the Atlantic coastline.

The latest project follows the recent completion of Infrastructure Development Programme (IDP) which provides for new transmission lines all the way to Berbice, connecting the Demerara and Berbice systems, and the commissioning of seven new sub-stations.
GPL Chairman, Winston Brassington said while the company has been able to cut loss reduction, stealing of electricity remains a problem.
On this score, he appealed to culprits to stop the illegal practice. Prime Minister Samuel Hinds also praised the development, stressing that it is geared at improving the lives of Guyanese, which continues to be the prime focus of the Government.
For him, the new Vreed-en-Hoop Power station is a fulfillment of another promise by Government to the people.
The Wartsila 20V32 generators at the new Vreed-en-Hoop plant are the largest of the Wartsila 32 Series machines and are the latest versions of the VAASA 18V32 that Guyana Electricity Corporation (GEC)/GPL has been using since 1993.

The operators, Wartsila Operations Guyana Inc., has experience operating and maintaining the 16 and 18 cylinder versions of these units at GPL’s 36MW Kingston 11 plant.

This facility allows GPL to meet the 110MW Demerara Berbice peak using reliable HFO fired generating equipment.