More woes for GPL consumers as barge severs submarine cable at Craig
June 7 2019
The troubles of state-owned Guyana Power and Light Inc. (GPL) are continuing unabated.Yesterday morning, days after a high-powered submarine cable linking the Vreed-en-Hoop and Kingston Power Plants was damaged, another one at Craig has been severed.
The barge involved in the incident
The compromised section of the 69 kV submarine cable at Kingston
According to the power company, this was another maritime accident.
It will pile more woes on the under-pressure GPL.“Our 13.8kV submarine cable that rests along upper Demerara River within proximity of Craig, East Bank Demerara was dislodged by a barge sailing along the Demerara River. This incident occurred around 04:23 hrs.”GPL said that as a result, its customers from Vriesland to La Retraite, West Bank Demerara, were without electricity until 07:46 hrs.Efforts, GPL said, are underway to alternatively power the customers from the Vreed-en-Hoop sub-station. The dislodged cable was located yesterday afternoon by deep water divers and efforts are being made to hoist and examine it for damage.According to GPL, repairs were effected to the onshore transmission and distribution infrastructure that connects to the cable as this was also damaged during the incident.Meanwhile, with regards to the 69 kV submarine cable, GPL said that it concluded its examination of the cable that had been laid on the river bed along the channel of the Demerara River connecting the Vreed-en-Hoop and Kingston Power Stations.
This examination revealed no further damage on the cable. As previously reported, investigations conducted on Wednesday June 5, revealed a compromised section of the cable approximately 0.7 km offshore from our Kingston operations.”
Officials from the China Machinery Import and Export Corporation (CMC), which had laid the cable, were part of the efforts to retrieve and examine the submarine cable and are at present preparing a curative plan of action.“In the interim, our company is continuing to engage MARAD in identifying an alternative route to lay a 13.8kV submarine cable along the Demerara River, in an effort to reconnect our Vreed-en-Hoop operations to the eastern sections of Demerara/Berbice Interconnected System. Both entities are also engaged in discussions regarding establishing improved maritime conduct within proximity of our submarine cables.
GPL is facing criticism after a noted increase of outages in recent months.
The state-owned company runs a connected system in Demerara and Berbice, using a network of transmission lines and submarine cables across the two rivers. Along it is scattered a number of power and sub-stations.However, in recent years after being dogged by old generators and then with new ones installed, the problems with old, leaky transmission and distribution lines started becoming more pronounced.Billions of dollars have been spent, but the outages have not gone away.Smart metres are being installed as well as new transmission lines along the coastland.However, the submarine cable and the continued use of CMC, a Chinese company, which came under fire for its quality of work, has placed GPL on the back foot.
The submarine cable from Kingston has now been broken three times since 2015, with the administration and GPL both blaming the previous government for allowing a cable to be placed in a busy port area.This time, the broken cable has left the East Demerara and Berbice interconnected system without almost 14 megawatts of power from Vreed-en-Hoop.With two engines at Kingston down for repairs, the shortfall of 10 megawatts for Berbice and East Demerara has forced GPL to implement a load shedding systems, which will leave consumers with hours of blackout each day. Those outages can last up to more than a month, unless GPL finds a way to bring another cable across the Demerara River.CMC, the same criticised Chinese company, will be in the midst of it. It has not been blamed for the poor laying of the cable.GPL is standing the costs of the repairs. The company said it is bringing two generators from Anna Regina and in the mid-term is looking for more than US$100M to replace cables, equipment and install more generators and sub-stations.
