Old submarine cable, poor distribution system blamed for frequent blackouts

Aug 30, 2016 News

Minister of Public Infrastructure, David Patterson told the Government Information Agency yesterday that frequent outages in Region Three, are being caused by the old submarine cable at the Vreed-en-Hoop station.

Minister David Patterson

A new one that had been laid was damaged several weeks ago by dredging activities and attempts are currently underway to repair it.
Residents have been complaining bitterly about the outages in frequent times, with the Guyana Power and Light Inc. remaining largely silent.
The new plant has 16 extra megawatts of power but the temporary, old submarine cable line has not been dependent.
According to Patterson, whenever there is an outage, entire areas are blocked. The reconnection has to be done in sections, proving a problem for GPL technicians.
“As we find them (problems) we reconnect, but unfortunately it disconnects before you can identify where to fix, because it’s a very old system,” the Minister said.
Patterson explained that he recently met with the GPL board to explore the possibilities of improving response time to at least 15 minutes. He said that an effort to repair the damaged new cable is underway with quotations out and work expected to commence shortly.
In Demerara, it’s not a question of generators, since all the generators are working, but it is a question of the distribution system, Minister Patterson reiterated.
“The system trips, and when it trips we have to close the circuit immediately, and that is the primary cause of the blackouts,” the Minister said.
He explained that efforts are being made to implement a programme to upgrade the distribution system, and the contract will be awarded shortly.
Priority will be on fixing the old distribution system to make it more effective, Minister Patterson pointed out.

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