October 27 ,2020
Kaieteur News – It will cost the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) administration an estimated $34 million each month to purchase power from the Giftland Mall in order to compensate for the shortfall of electricity badly needed.
Giftland’s owner, Roy Beepat, explained that the huge part of the sum will be expended monthly on fuel. Beepat said that the power itself would cost around $9.9 million per month while fuel cost is estimated to be $29.5 million.
“What you have to be looking at, that $9.9 million is for servicing, we have to provide equipment, we have to keep for depreciation, and so on,” he said.
Guyana’s blackout woes is expected to ease as Giftland Mall is set to supply the Demerara-Berbice Interconnected System (DBIS) with almost five megawatts of power needed to boost the current supply of electricity to the national grid.
Once this is in place, it will aid in the shortage of power outages on the East Coast Demerara corridor.
The power supply is expected to be spilt with 1.5 megawatts being supplied during the daytime hours and 3.5 megawatts in the peak evening hours.
Giftland’s power system has a 6.7 megawatt output capacity but merely utilizes 1.6 megawatts during peak operation periods.
Back in January, after almost two years of back and forth, Beepat and the previous A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) Coalition government had signed the agreement that would have seen the country benefitting from the additional 4.5 megawatts of power to augment the 120 megawatts that GPL is currently supplying to the power grid.
However, the protracted March 2020 Elections had put a halt on that deal.
However, the country was hit with a recent spate of blackouts, forcing the new administration to scramble for an additional 30 megawatts of power.
Since then, the request for Expressions of Interest (EOI) have been published in the local newspapers to identify appropriate suppliers that can potentially fulfill the minimum requirements for supplying the firm power generation needed.
Minimum requirements set by GPL for interested businesses to supplement its grid were for bidders to demonstrate the ability to deliver a complete project within two months of an agreement and demonstrate access to competent personnel with operation and maintenance experience at a minimum of one facility of similar size.
Additionally, bidders were asked to prove legal status via certified copies of company registration certificates/documents, copies of audited financial reports for the last three years (balance sheets, income and expenditure statements, auditors’ reports, etc.)
According to the project scope, GPL shall only be responsible for grid connection at the point of interconnection with the existing network infrastructure.
So far, at least 30 businesses with the capacity to supplement GPL’s grid have submitted their respective EOIs to the power utility company.
