Guyana Power and Light Inc. is renewing the operations and maintenance contracts for four of its major power plants, preserving the arrangements under which 106 megawatts of generation capacity is managed by Power Producers and Distributors Inc. (PPDI), while APAN Energy Services Inc. will continue operating GPL’s 28.9-megawatt Columbia plant.
The contracts are being renewed just days after Guyana’s Demerara-Berbice Interconnected System recorded its highest-ever peak electricity demand of 242.64 megawatts. That figure is already above the 221 MW peak recorded during the corresponding period last year, and GPL and the Government are preparing for demand to climb to about 266 MW during the August-to-October period.
Against that backdrop, maintaining the performance of existing generation assets has become increasingly important.
PPDI will continue operating and maintaining the Kingston, Garden of Eden and Vreed-en-Hoop power plants, which GPL identifies as having a combined capacity of 106 MW. PPDI has operated and maintained the four Wartsila plants in the GPL system since 2017, with its portfolio historically comprising two Kingston plants, Garden of Eden and Vreed-en-Hoop.
APAN, meanwhile, will remain responsible for the 28.9 MW Columbia plant.
That facility is relatively new compared with much of GPL’s generation fleet. GPL’s development programme records that the company and APAN signed an EPC contract in 2023 for the 28.9 MW heavy-fuel-oil-fired plant at Columbia, consisting of 17 containerised generator units.
Together, the plants covered by the renewed arrangements represent more than 130 MW of installed generation capacity.
But the latest announcement comes at a time when the utility has little room for complacency.
GPL recently disclosed that it had approximately 256 MW of reliable generation capacity against the 242.64 MW record peak. Government and GPL have therefore been working to add generation in the short term, including bringing a 9.3 MW Garden of Eden engine back into service, returning a 4.5 MW Hyundai unit following repairs, restoring another 5.5 MW from an engine undergoing major overhaul and adding another 5 MW from the power ship. Those interventions are expected to lift available generation to roughly 280 MW by the end of August.
That additional capacity is intended to create some breathing room before demand rises further.
The pressure is not coming from a single source. Officials have pointed to unusually hot and dry conditions, expanding housing, and increased commercial and industrial activity as factors behind the rapid rise in consumption. GPL’s customer base has also expanded from roughly 204,000 customers in 2020 to about 250,000 by July 2026.
The strain has also exposed a distinction between having enough generation and having a grid capable of delivering it.
GPL has said some recent outages were linked not only to generation constraints but to sections of the transmission and distribution network reaching their thermal limits as consumption increased. Some East Coast and East Bank feeders, for example, were designed to carry around 8 to 9 MW but have reached their capacity.
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