AS the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) races to restore operations at its Garden of Eden power plant on the East Bank of Demerara, Minister within the Ministry of Public Works, Deodat Indar, has disclosed that some 20 engineers from the Wartsila Corporation are currently working to rectify the issue that led to Friday night’s massive disruption.

In November 2020, the government received its five new dual-fuel generating sets from Wartsila which cost a whopping US$41 million and boosted the power supply of the Demerara-Berbice Interconnected System (DBIS) by 46.5 Megawatts (MW).

Minister Indar during a telephone interview on Monday, told this publication that teams from the company began arriving in the country two nights ago and have since been assessing the situation. He noted that all five generators have been temporarily powered down and all operations remain temporarily halted as a result of technical challenges being experienced with the generators.

WARTSILA LIABLE
Minister Indar stated that Wartsila has agreed to undertake the necessary costs for repairs to the equipment as part of its contractual agreement with the government. According to Minister Indar, the company signed an engineering, procurement and construction contract (EPC contract) with the government.

He explained to this publication that this is a construction contract in which the contractor holds responsibility for the design, procurement, construction, and handover of a project.

According to the minister, this also includes “performance guarantees” which means that the contractor is solely responsible for the project and in the event that there is an issue with the project, the EPC contractor would be liable for any defects and rectifications or would have to provide compensation to the employer.

“They have not handed over the project to the Government of Guyana through GPL. We have not commissioned it as yet because all of the works were not completed and the testing and the reliability and everything [were] not completed and during that period is when the issues occurred. So, they have to deal with all the cost for rectification and everything,” he said.

Minister Indar added: “Wartsila also has the operate-and-maintain contract for the plant as well. So, apart from them building it out and handing it over to government, they also have the contract to operate and maintain it as well, so its fully their responsibility.”

The minister stated that a definitive answer on the cause of fuel seeping into the exhaust system is expected to be conveyed to the government within the next 24 hours, based on information from Wartsila’s engineers.

MEETING DEMAND
Even as the company continues working to restore functionality to the generators, Minister Indar gave the assurance that GPL is currently meeting its generating demand. He stated that the demand generation is usually 110 to 114 megawatts, noting that even with the generators presently out of commission, the company is generating some 120 megawatts which meets its current demand.

Minister Indar stated that with this, the company can mitigate blackouts and load-shedding in several areas while the generators are being worked on.

“Right now, we have about 120 megawatts of generating capacity and our demand is around 110 megawatts to 114 megawatts, sometimes it goes to 116, it depends, but we are maintaining the generating capacity based on the current demand, so we are not giving people blackout. You’re not getting low [sic] shedding, you’re not getting the kind of blackouts, because we have the generating capacity,” Minister Indar stated.