Latest update April 23rd, 2024 12:59 AM
Sep 23, 2009 News
As new Wartsila engines begin operations next month
Plagued by power outages over the past months, Demerara consumers are being told to expect relief as early as next month when three new engines are introduced to the generation system.
Giving an update yesterday on the progress to install the Wartsila engines, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Guyana Power and Light Inc. (GPL), Bharat Dindyal, disclosed that a special team will start work by next week to connect the more than 20 megawatt system to the national grid.
Nearby residents will not have to worry too much about noise as new technologies are in place to reduce it.
By mid next month, the engines will be connected to the Demerara grid and an agreement has been signed with Wartsila, a Finnish company, to maintain them.
The official made the disclosures during a tour of the US$30 million state-of-the-art project at Kingston.
According to Dindyal, workers were able to improve production time over the past two months to reach deadlines.
The news will come as a relief to consumers in Demerara as outages increase in face of generation shortfall and installation of new transmission lines from Kingston to Sophia.
In addition, GPL is eyeing two more engines for next year to be added to the current network.
However, Berbicians will have to make do with their generation until a US$40 million transmission line project comes on stream that will see Berbice and Demerara connected to one system. This project will be carried out with the Chinese over a two-year period and will include new sub-stations, among other work.
GPL, however, will not be abandoning its old Kingston power plants any time soon as it is still the main distribution centre for power.
The news will also come at a time when GPL is grappling with not enough power with demands soaring above 70 megawatts at peak periods. Currently, peak demand is 69 megawatts during the day and about 72 megawatts at nights. The power comes from a combination of Wartsila and several other ancient engines.
According to the official, the three new engines will see GPL’s dependence on the more expensive diesel oil, drop significantly to the cheaper heavy fuel oils (HFO), good news since the cash-strapped company has been eyeing several measures to reduce technical and other losses.
However, although prices of fuel worldwide have dropped, Guyanese should not expect smaller light bills anytime soon since the price of HFO has risen.
Meanwhile, explaining the recent spate of blackouts in Demerara, the CEO blamed this on generation shortfall and work has commenced to install five kilometers of transmission lines from the new generation plant to the GPL’s Sophia station to cater for the extra load.
He explained that technicians are running the new lines alongside the old ones and switching live lines would entail the power to be switched off. Although systems are in place to ensure that not everyone is affected, some amount of outages are still happening.
Regarding the Berbice power situation, Dindyal explained that two turbines at Skeldon developed problems. Combined with this is that fact that Skeldon is grinding. However, the situation is expected to normalise within days with Berbicians seeing less outages, he reassured.
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