-GPL says technical fault caused Thursday’s massive power outage

THE government is firmly on the track to providing a modern power grid for Guyana, People’s Progressive Party (PPP) General Secretary, Dr Bharrat Jagdeo said on Thursday.

Following a technical fault at the Kingston Plant, which according to the Guyana Power and Light Inc. (GPL) triggered Thursday’s power outage, Dr Jagdeo pointed to the outdated power-generation system that the PPP has been left with.

During a press conference at Freedom House, he stated that there is adequate power in the system and he was told that it was a battery-related issue.

“It has nothing to do with the availability of power, because we have enough power generating in the system, but they developed a problem at Kingston today. But this is part of as I said to you before, until we have a modern grid with the redundancies, we’re building out now, we’re not going to be able to stop these intermittent blackouts, and that’s what we have focused on heavily, on modernising the grid,” he said.

He also pointed to the investments by the government to upkeep the power-generation system.

Meanwhile, in a press release, GPL said that with the addition of the second power ship generating 60 MWs, its transmission and distribution system has remained relatively stable, aside from a few minor network issues.
GPL currently has approximately 250 MWs of available generation. The current peak demand is approximately 180 MWs.

The power company said the technical issue that occurred Thursday morning is not generation related.

“At approximately 07:25hrs this morning, a technical fault occurred at the Kingston Power Plant. The Direct Current (DC) Control System failed on the Busbar, triggering the disconnection of all breakers on that Busbar, including three critical feeders, two generators, and a main 69kV transformer. As a result, the Kingston Plant went offline, causing a cascading shutdown across the Demerara-Berbice Interconnected System (DBIS).

“Engineers immediately began assessing the failure at the Kingston Plant, while System Control Engineers promptly initiated power restoration efforts, starting from the Garden of Eden location.

“An investigation found damaged components at the Kingston Plant, and immediate efforts are being made to secure and install replacements. Further investigation and analyses are ongoing,” the release added.

The government has been pursuing the gas-to-energy project which when complete will bring significant benefits to citizens, including reliable and cost-effective power.

Together with CNOOC Petroleum Guyana Limited and Hess Guyana Exploration, its co-venture partners on the Stabroek Block, ExxonMobil Guyana is working with the Government of Guyana to advance that project.

The project will see a 200km 12-inch diameter pipeline channelling natural gas from the Liza Phase One and Liza Phase Two FPSOs to a power plant NGL facility that will be built at Wales, West Bank Demerara (WBD).

That pipeline will be landing on the West Coast of Demerara (WCD) shore, continuing approximately 25 kilometres to the NGL and power plant facilities.

It has an estimated total cost of US$1.8 billion and is cost recoverable.