– US$2.5M IDB loan for expansion works

THE Guyana Power and Light Incorporated (GPL) plans to construct a transmission line between its Sophia and Kingston Substations to reduce power outages.

This will be done to duplicate the link between the two stations to make the Demerara-Berbice Interconnected System (DBIS) more resilient.

This was disclosed during a Public Utilities Commission (PUC) meeting with GPL to review the 2018 Operating Standards and Performance Targets of the state-owned power company on Thursday.
GPL has also secured US$2.5M in funding, through a loan from the Inter-American Development Bank, to construct five kilometers of transmission line, in addition to expansion works scheduled for 2020.

According to GPL’s Divisional Director of Projects Ryan Ross, GPL has one single transmission line [between the substations] and if that line fails, “what effectively happens is that there’s a separation and this separation would likely result in a complete system shutdown.”

The GPL official reasoned that the Kingston power plant is the company’s most important power plant, generating 58 megawatts of electricity.

He explained that should there be a disruption in the current transmission line at the Sophia substation, this would affect consumers as far as Berbice. Hence, the project to come on stream is of critical importance.

Plans are also in the pipeline to construct a transmission line from Vreed-en-Hoop to Wales.

Afterwards, Ross said a substation will be constructed at Wales, from which another transmission line will connect Wales to Garden of Eden. These plans, under GPL, are being actively explored to achieve redundancy in its transmission system.

Meanwhile, for 2018, GPL said there was a 1.86 per cent reduction in losses in comparison to 2017. This translated to an overall 27.74 per cent reduction, while 2017 had a record of 29.6 per cent.

According to GPL’s presentation, the reduced losses were attributed to the replacement of 30,000 smart meters, detection and energy recovery from electricity diversion, installation of a more secure network to safeguard against electricity diversion, load balancing on low voltage and primary network, and the upgrade of approximately 300km of low voltage and primary network.

With this in mind, the power company rolled out measures this year to improve its performance. These include the upgrade of additional low voltage and primary network under GPL’s Power Utility Upgrade Programme (PUUP).

Moreover, GPL continues to work towards the upgrade of its network to aid in the reduction of electricity diversion.

In relation to the measures implemented to improve performance for its large customers, GPL, in its presentation, outlined plans to complete a field audit of all maximum demand and small business installation.

With respect to meter reading, plans are afoot to complete the field audit of all meter reading routes. This will be done to improve customer account records and bring estimated billing to an all-time low.