Guyana’s Vice President, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, has acknowledged the strain on Guyana Power and Light (GPL)’s power generation capacity, attributing it to several key factors. During his customary weekly press conference, Jagdeo pointed to the expansion of businesses, the recent heatwave, and the surge in
new housing developments as primary contributors to the electricity supply shortage.
Jagdeo noted that many individuals who were previously generating power privately have opted to switch back to relying on GPL for their electricity needs. This shift has significantly increased the demand for electricity, which GPL is currently struggling to meet. Addressing this trend, Jagdeo stated, “So it makes sense for a lot of people who are self-generating to turn off their generators now, who were generating in the past, and come onto the GPL grid. They have now flooded over to the grid because we are getting subsidized electricity from it.”
Furthermore, he revealed that GPL had to disconnect approximately 15 businesses from the power grid during peak hours due to unsuccessful negotiations regarding their electricity consumption. Although he did not disclose the names of these businesses, he referred to them as “massive users,” including malls with their own power generation capacity.
Jagdeo clarified that while these large power consumers receive subsidized electricity from GPL for most of the day, they have been urged to use their own power sources during peak hours (from 18:00 hrs to 22:00 hrs). However, this request did not yield the desired results, as these users were reluctant to disconnect from the grid. This forced GPL to make a challenging decision between affecting these 15 businesses or having approximately 30,000 people experience power shortages.
Regarding additional factors contributing to GPL’s inability to meet demand, Jagdeo highlighted the recent heatwave, which has led to a surge in the usage of air conditioning units. He said, “..We’re buying some additional capacity, nearly 30 megawatts which will come in in December, that will be able to supply everyone back so at that time, you don’t have to come off in the peak hours.”
In a previous engagement, Jagdeo had underscored that GPL has around 174 megawatts (MW) of installed capacity, with the government sourcing an additional 30MW of power. The delivery of this additional capacity to Guyana is expected before the end of the year, with the hope that it will alleviate power shortages.
In addition, he reminded that the Wales Gas-to-Energy project set to come on stream in 2023 will see half the electricity costs being slashed.
