Guyana power utility seeks 15-year license extension

Guyana Power & Light (GPL), the country’s main electricity supplier, looks to extend its license by 15 years.

The company submitted an application to the Office of the Prime Minister which is responsible for the power sector and will accept comments on the request for 30 days.

GPL’s current 25-year license was granted in 1999, and its operations comprise generation, transmission and distribution.

The utility operates the bulk of Guyana’s power production which comes from heavy fuel oil-operated plants that total around 214MW, while a 300MW natural gas-fired plant is due online in 2025 as part of the country’s gas-to-energy project.

Peak demand has ranged between 172MW and 205MW.

More recently, the operator has been doubling down on actions as part of the Guysol utility-scale solar capacity and associated battery energy storage program.

GPL’s development and expansion roadmap is available in the Documents box in the top-right corner of the screen.

In a review of GPL’s operating standards and performance targets, the Public Utilities Commission expressed concern that the company has failed to meet most of these benchmarks.

“Particularly disconcerting is the failure to meet the customer interruptions standard. Whilst the commission acknowledges the reasons provided by the company for this failure, it strongly recommends that the company reexamines its planning and forecasting methods,” the watchdog said in an order, available here.

Additional PUC power sector metrics are available at this link.

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Meanwhile, the Guyana Energy Agency issued a request for expressions of interest to prepare detailed designs and technical specifications for energy efficiency measures and distributed solar systems for a second group of public buildings.

The reference terms also are available in the Documents box.