The government is building redundancy into Guyana’s electricity network as part of a major infrastructure programme to improve reliability and reduce disruptions to consumers.
Guyana Power and Light Inc. (GPL) Team Leader of the Executive Management Committee, Kesh Nandlall, said new infrastructure is being designed so electricity can continue flowing even when a transmission line or transformer is taken out of service.
Speaking during a tour of the Goedverwagting substation on Friday, Nandlall said redundancy will be a key feature of GPL’s future infrastructure projects.
“What we are building out, and in all our future infrastructural projects, we are building redundancy. So that if we are ready to take down one of these transformers, we have another one there and we won’t have any outage,” he explained.
He added that under the existing system, maintenance at some substations can result in customers losing electricity.
The new infrastructure is intended to provide alternative pathways for power.
“If one-line trips or if one transformer trips, it goes to the other one and the interruption of the customers is not there,” Nandlall said.
The works form part of a US$422.2 million programme to strengthen Guyana’s electricity transmission and distribution network and prepare it to receive power from the 300-megawatt Gas-to-Energy project at Wales.
Thus, the Goedverwagting substation will play a central role in this upgraded network, receiving electricity generated at Wales and transmitting it across the interconnected system.
Power from the Gas-to-Energy plant will be transmitted to Goedverwagting at 230 kilovolts (kV), before being reduced to lower voltage levels for distribution across the network.
The substation will also interconnect with GPL’s existing Demerara-Berbice Interconnected System (DBIS), including the Sophia substation.
The new facility has been designed with additional capacity to cater for future electricity demand.
A new 69kV transmission line will connect Goedverwagting to the Columbia substation, replacing existing infrastructure along the railway embankment.
Monopoles for sections of that transmission network have already been constructed.
A 230kV transmission network will also extend east to Williamsburg, where another substation will reduce the voltage to 69kV.
That network will interconnect with the Onverwagt and Number 53 substations, while GPL said power can also be transmitted farther east to the Skeldon substation.
This means communities along the corridor, extending towards Moleson Creek, will eventually be connected to the expanded power network.
Nandlall said the investment is necessary to ensure electricity generated under the Gas-to-Energy project can be efficiently transmitted to homes and businesses.
Meanwhile, the commissioning is nearing for the 300-megawatt Goedverwagting substation and the US$20 million National Control Centre.
The control centre will allow GPL to monitor and manage electricity flows across the national grid in real time, improving its ability to respond to faults and manage demand.
In addition, new substations at Chateau Margot and Enmore, along with the expansion of the Columbia substation, are approximately 60 per cent complete.
The wider programme is expected to create a stronger and more interconnected electricity network, with multiple transmission routes and backup infrastructure designed to limit outages when equipment fails or requires maintenance.