Prime Minister Mark Phillips on Wednesday tested the Guyana Power and Light Inc (GPL) five
dual-fuel power generating sets at its Garden of Eden generation station.
“I had the opportunity of starting each of the generators, running it for five minutes, then shutting
it down, and I can tell you that the process went smoothly, so I am satisfied that all five
generators are working and it’s just a matter of time before we have the 46.5 megawatts of
additional electricity available to the people of Guyana,” PM Phillips said.
The additional 46.5 megawatts of power to the country’s interconnected systems are just a
fraction of what the Government has planned for the entire energy sector, Phillips explained.
“Our strategic outlook is to provide 400 megawatts of power over the next five years, utilising
fossil fuel, gas from the gas-to-shore project, and renewable energy in the form of solar, wind
and hydropower,” the PM, a retired Guyana Defence Force (GDF) soldier said.
GPL’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Bharat Dindyal said despite setbacks as a result of the
ongoing pandemic the facility is in its final phase of testing. Dindial said the generators will be
linked to the national gird through the sub-station. Then, each would be load tested individually,
before being run non-stop at full capacity for five continuous days continuously before being
commissioned.
“The sub-station has to be commissioned, because that’s the link between the plant and GPL’s
system. So, when they commissioned, we’ll be in a position to start sending power to the
national grid…the other thing is the load testing of the individual engines and of course, the
entire plant, the engines were started today and were run on idle, so to do them on load, we have
to connect them to the GPL system and keep increasing the output to get up to 9.3 megawatts
[each],” Dindial explained.
Wartsila will manage the generating sets following the commissioning, the CEO said.
“We are negotiating with them now on the operations and maintenance agreement,”
Dindial said.
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