GPL fails to meet loss reduction targets

Sep 13, 2013 News

“…has been increasing in recent years” – Divisional Director

Instead of meeting its targets in terms of loss reduction, Guyana Power and Light Inc. (GPL) has instead seen an increase of 0.4 per cent as it relates to technical and commercial losses in the first half of this year.
This disclosure was made recently by GPL’s Divisional Director (tasked with loss reduction) Kumar Sharma, when top brass of the company met with members of the public to discuss its performance.
“We did not meet our targets for 2011, 2012 and 2013…Instead of achieving a reduction in losses for the period, we are seeing a 0.4 per cent increase for the first half of this year,” Sharma said.
In fact last year, instead of reducing losses, the company saw an increase in losses, as is the continuing trend this year.
Tracing its losses over the year, Kumar said that while the power company would have managed to reduce its overall losses between 2005 and 2010, “from 2010 on we have been finding it very difficult.”
Between 2010 and 2013 the losses, both technical and commercial, have been on the increase.
Kumar explained that the technical losses are caused mainly by inadequate equipment capacity, and old and obsolete cables among other factors.
According to the Divisional Director, there has not been any major investment in GPL since the 1970s to tackle loss reduction.
“The (US$42M) Chinese project is now dealing with some of the technical aspects of the losses.”
He said that the commercial losses are mainly caused by illegal connections, tampered and bypassed meters and metering problems.
During the meeting it was disclosed that almost 4000 specialized (Itron) meters were installed, but according to Sharma, while this was meant to tackle losses, it was found that persons have still been able to tamper with the meters.
As such the power company is now looking to install ‘Advance Metering Infrastructure’ (AMI) which the officials have described as state-of-the-art.
“We will have to look now at improving our metering programme to introduce new technology to support us,” said Kumar.
The power company will be installing the AMI system particularly in the central Georgetown business district.
Kumar said the contract was inked last year and will be completed by the end of October.
He lamented the fact that the “cost to reduce losses is extremely expensive.”
He said the politicians and members of the public may not be aware of the cost factor.
Kumar explained that in order for the power company to secure funds for loss reduction, it has to develop pilot projects to demonstrate that the methods work.
He said that the power company will be spending US$5M for two pilot projects funded by the Inter-American Development Bank. The first was completed in the first quarter of this year at Cummings Park, where there was extremely high theft of electricity.
Kumar stressed that the power company introduced a medium voltage distribution system which eliminated the secondary low voltage network. This method saw smaller transformers being installed on the utility poles while the meters would be installed directly below.
This project is now being analyzed in order to determine the recovery rate of the system.
Kumar said that prior to the project being instituted, there were hundreds of illegal connections.