Power restored after trips in Demerara-Berbice system

Last Updated on Tuesday, 28 May 2019, 22:22 by Writer

The Guyana Power and Light Inc. (GPL) on Tuesday said an almost-three-hour-blackout in Demerara and Berbice was initially triggered by an “abrupt” loss of a total of 16.5 megawatts (MWs) of generation capacity at the Kingston and Vreed-en-Hoop power plants.

“Remedial system restoration commenced within minutes of the shutdown which resulted in power restoration in both Counties. Our Company remains fully cognizant of the inconvenience caused by these outages and offers sincerest apologies,” GPL said in a statement.

The power company said the blackout in the Demerara-Berbice Interconnected System (DBIS)  began at about 8:35 am. All customers within Berbice were repowered at approximately 8:38 am with the exception of Cumberland to Auchlyne which were repowered at 11:19 am. In Demerara, power restoration began around 08:35 am, with full restoration at 11:16 am.

At Vreed-en-Hoop, the engine safety module (ESM), which provides monitoring protection for the engines was activated and shut down the No. 2 engine due to a defective speed sensor, which resulted in a loss of 8.7 MWs. While at Kingston, a drop in frequency resulted in the loss of 7.8 MWs.