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GEORGETOWN, Guyana CMC – The recent spate of blackouts in communities located in East Coast and East Bank of Demerara has been attributed to network related problems caused by the elevated level of lightning activity in recent weeks.
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) Incorporated, Bharrat Dindyal, said the two transmission lines leading from Garden of Eden, East Bank Demerara to Sophia, Georgetown were designed in the 1970s and are not equipped to withstand the lightning.
In an attempt to solve the problem, he noted that the power company has already imported surge-protecting equipment, and installation is set to commence shortly.
Dindyal explained that on the East Coast, the circuit that has been serving consumers from Success to Coldingen was overloaded during the airing of the recently concluded Caribbean Premier League (CPL) tournament.
Actions have since been taken to offload that circuit and as a temporary solution, another circuit has been extended to take off some of the load.
He said the new sub-station at Good Hope, East Coast Demerara will offer a more permanent solution to this problem.
The Good Hope substation is expected to go into commercial operation later this month. It is only one component of the company’s multimillion-dollar Infrastructure Development Project, which is a collaborative effort among the Government of Guyana, GPL and the People’s Republic of China through a concessionary loan of US$38.96M from the China Export – Import Bank.
