Upsurge in “blackouts” may be interconnection problem

President Donald Ramotar has said that the recent increases of “power outages” are not necessarily a result of lack of generation capacity at the Guyana Power and Light Inc. but maybe with interconnections problems. The President made this disclosure on Friday at his first press briefing of the year, saying that his comments on the power outages were based on the information presented to him at his daily briefings.
Confronted with a negative forecast, President Ramotar said that the information supplied to him suggests differently. The President assured that his reports include demand and supply data, “so from the information I have, which is on my desk right now, the generation capacity for the Demerara facility in particular is way above the peak demand.”  Ramotar said that the current generation capacity on the Demerara Grid is at about 92MW while the current peak demand hovers at around 73MW.
“That’s why I am saying the blackouts, based on the figures that I have, would probably be based more on local issues.”
Recent blackouts have solicited angry responses from Guyanese who are of the view that the power company is being mismanaged, resulting in a lack of generation capacity.
Guyana has been suffering from blackouts for several decades, and despite the significant investment in the sector by the government, the situation is getting no better.
It was France-based Guyanese, Professor and Electrical Engineer, Joseph Farley, who said that a good electricity supply is paramount if Guyana wishes to progress with businesses.
The specialist, who visited Guyana last year and did work with the University of Guyana Berbice and Turkeyen Campuses, stated that no one in the business world would tolerate employing large numbers of people and have them “sit idle for four hours” during a blackout.
Professor Farley said that there can be several solutions to improve the electricity situation in Guyana. He added that the country needs to ensure that there are the right people doing the jobs and that appointments are based on merits.