Prime Minister Brigadier (Ret’d), Mark Phillips recently convened a special meeting with parliamentary committee members, private sector representatives and executives of the Guyana Power and Light Cooperation (GPL) at the Office of the Prime Minister.
The meeting on Thursday, facilitated by the Prime Minister, who holds responsibility for the nation’s energy sector, provided an opportunity for a comprehensive update by GPL’s executive management on the company’s current capacity and its short to long-term measures for reliable energy supply.
GPL’s Acting Chief Executive Officer, Kesh Nandlall, in his remarks, explained that the number of customers grew from around 140,000 in 2008 to over 227,000 currently, with a total annual gross generation increasing from 600 million megawatt-hours to 1.2 billion megawatt-hours and the peak demand growing from 73.5 megawatts to 186.4 for that period.
To meet the rising demand, according to Nandlall, GPL is making efforts to increase its generation capacity to address the current peak demand of 180MW as of April 2024. He pointed out that in order to sustain system stability, the company has to maintain a spinning reserve of 14MW, which requires an availability of 194MW at the current peak demand.
He stated that currently, the Demerara Berbice Interconnected System has an available capacity of 177 megawatts, including 20 megawatts from the Columbia Plant, which has a total capacity of 28.9 megawatts. Once fully operational, this plant will operate at 85% capacity by the end of April. GPL’s capacity will be further boosted with the arrival of a 36-megawatt net capacity power ship, which will come online at Everton, Berbice, in May. These additions will bring approximately 218 megawatts of firm generation capacity.
Additionally, it is expected that in May, a 6.9 MW generation unit will be added, and in July 2024, a 5.5 MW generation unit will come online at Kingston after maintenance, making an estimated total of 230.4 MW available to GPL.
Minister within the Minister of Public Works, Deodat Indar, in his remarks, highlighted the Government’s commitment and explained that the power ship that was recently acquired will provide a total capacity of 36 Megawatts for a period of two years. He also noted that GPL will pay UCI a fee of 6.62 US cents per kWh as a monthly charter fee for the power ship and a monthly O&M fee of 0.98 US cents per kWh, based on the electricity generated.
Minister Indar reiterated that tariffs from the utility company will not increase, thereby protecting the Guyanese public from additional financial burdens.
Meanwhile, based on demand estimates, the Government plans to procure an additional 30-40 megawatts by the end of 2024. Additionally, the Gas-to-Energy project will add another 300 megawatts in two phases by the end of 2025.
Members of the APNU/AFC parliamentary opposition were notably absent from the meeting, including the current Chairman of the Parliamentary Sectoral Committee on Economic Services, Shurwayne Holder, who had requested that the meeting occur.
