THE Gas-to-Energy (GTE) project remains a significant flagship initiative for the government, with the administration last week securing an additional GY$5 billion from the National Assembly for the project.
But GTE itself is just one piece of building a more reliable, affordable and accessible electrical system in Guyana. Electrical grids are generally divided into three parts: generation, transmission and distribution. Each plays a vital role in providing reliable power. Guyana Power and Light (GPL) currently oversees all three elements.

Generation is the production of the electricity itself, and GTE promises to be a major change for Guyana’s power generation. The transition from an antiquated heavy fuel oil plant to a modern natural gas-fired plant promises to dramatically slash emissions, protect air quality and reduce wholesale power costs by as much as 50 percent.
Transmission, meanwhile, is the process of moving that electricity at high voltages across long distances from generation to local communities. And finally, distribution is how electricity gets to houses and businesses.

Both these elements are key for preventing blackouts and preserving reliability. Even a very reliable generation resource cannot compensate for a poor transmission and distribution system. Most everyday outages occur on this level, where severe weather, power theft, accidents and maintenance problems are all daily challenges.
The World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business rankings have ranked Guyana’s electrical conditions as some of the worst in the Western Hemisphere in terms of reliability, cost and accessibility.
But the country is making progress. Earlier this year, the House approved GY$43.3 billion for transmission and distribution work—and the latest $5 billion is expected to be marked for the same purpose. In July, the government awarded KPIL, a major Indian company, a large contract to develop transmission lines and substations by 2024.

These kinds of investments are critical to achieving the dream of reliable, affordable and clean electricity for Guyana. The grid is aging and needs significant upgrades to preserve reliability, especially in the face of climate change and rising sea levels.
The gird is also a key element of Guyana’s sustainable future. The government intends to use GTE as a springboard to integrating more renewable resources like hydropower, wind and solar, but integrating variable or “intermittent” resources like solar and wind on a large scale require a much more advanced grid than Guyana currently possesses.
Renewable power sources produce different amounts of power depending on weather conditions, making them uniquely difficult to manage on a grid. Some resources like rooftop solar also require bidirectional flows of energy—lines and equipment that can take power both to and from houses. These types of resources require both upgraded physical infrastructure and advanced software control systems to ensure reliability.

Natural gas plants are ideally suited to supporting renewable energy, since they can come online and switch offline very rapidly to preserve a steady flow of electricity during changing wind and sun conditions. But that capacity depends on having transmission and distribution systems in place to facilitate it. Improving access to electricity in the hinterlands and incorporating the Amaila Falls hydropower facility into the gird will also require major investments in long-distance transmission lines.
Due to the growing influx of oil and gas revenues, Guyana is finally in a position to make these kinds of investments for the future. More reliable and cheaper power could help a wide range of Guyanese industries be more competitive globally and reduce burdens on thousands of households.

While the GTE project will undoubtably be transformative, it is important to set expectations. The project will help households and businesses enormously by cutting the high costs of electricity that have traditionally held Guyana back. But when it comes to preventing outages, a more reliable generation source is just the first piece of the puzzle. Continued investments in a modern and resilient transmission and distribution system like those the Government is beginning to make are vital.