…after loss of 35 megawatt of electricity in outages

ON Friday, both Demerara and Berbice counties endured power outages as a result of a glitch in operation of a transformer at the Kingston Number Two Power Plant.

The Department of Public Information (DPI) said it spoke to System Control Engineer within the Guyana Power and Light Inc. (GPL), Kempton France, to ascertain the scope of the issue and to determine whether a resolution was feasible. “At 11:24hrs, the Demerara-Berbice Interconnected System suffered a major shutdown. However, consumers along the West Coast were still powered,” the System Control Engineer explained.

The power outages were as a result of the failure of one the 69-kilovolt transformers at the Kingston Number Two Power Plant that is rated at 35 MVA (megavolt amp). As a result, 35 megawatts of power was lost, leading to the power outages.

To restore electricity to the affected areas, the system control engineer explained that restoration efforts began almost instantaneously. “By noon, most of the areas in East Berbice were re-powered, and in Demerara, the restoration process started some 15 minutes after the shutdown,” Engineer France revealed.

Moreover, after a subsequent glitch in operations at the power plant, approximately 19 megawatts of electricity was lost. To rectify this matter, Engineer Kempton France explained, GPL workers sought to control the situation, thereby effectively restoring power by 14:38hrs. As GPL continues to address the underlining issue, Engineer Kempton France said “the situation is definitely under control… our entire staff is working very hard to ensure that our customers remain with power as we go into the weekend and forward”.