The Guyana Power and Light Inc (GPL) has renewed contracts with two companies for the operation and maintenance of four generating facilities with a combined capacity of 134.9 megawatts.
In a statement yesterday, the utility company said APAN Energy Services Inc will continue operating and maintaining the 28.9-megawatt power plant at Columbia.
Power Producers and Distributors Inc (PPDI), meanwhile, will remain responsible for the Kingston, Garden of Eden and Vreed-en-Hoop plants, which have a combined generating capacity of 106 megawatts.
GPL said the four plants are important to meeting electricity demand and maintaining supplies across the Demerara-Berbice Interconnected System.
The contracts were signed by Kesh Nandlall, head of GPL’s Executive Management Committee; APAN plant manager Ronald Cheruiyot; and PPDI Chief Executive Officer Dr Brian Sukhai.
GPL Divisional Director Gary Hall and representatives of the companies also attended the signing.
The utility said the renewals formed part of its efforts to improve the operation of its generating assets and strengthen the reliability and stability of the electricity supply. It did not disclose the value or duration of the contracts.
It is unclear whether a dispute between GPL and APAN Energy had been resolved.
In March last year, Nandlall had said that APAN Energy, which supplied 18 used generators from Honduras in 2023 had told GPL that the generators would be fixed to the required specifications by the end of that month.
“They had represented that they will finish at the end of March,” Nandlall told Stabroek News when asked for an update.
He had said that the company was undertaking work on the generator sets, such as testing, to ensure all was well as they switched from using intermediate fuel oil (IFO) to heavy fuel oils (HFO).
The generators from Honduras had experienced several shipping delays. They were first expected here on November 22, 2023 and then December 5, 2023 before finally arriving on December 13, 2023.
In January of 2025, the GPL Head along with his brother, Attorney General (AG) Anil Nandlall SC had disclosed that GPL and APAN were in legal discussions as the utility company wanted to leverage liquidated damages for late delivery of the engines.
“The matter is being reviewed by external counsel, London House Chambers, at the request of GPL with instructions to claim liquidated damages and compensation for any breach of contract established. London House Chambers have already made contact with APAN’s counsel in pursuance thereof,” the AG had stated.
When the GPL CEO was asked if the company’s signalled readiness to have the gensets working by the end of March, 2025 meant that the legal matter was no longer ongoing, he replied, “I did not say that. I said that they had represented that they will finish at the end of March.”
During his 2024 end-of-year press conference, President Irfaan Ali had informed that he and his cabinet had told GPL that once this country pays for a service and delivery and it was not met, “action must be taken.” He had said that Anil Nandlall was charged with overseeing the process and that action had already commenced. “All the issues surrounding what happened are being dealt by the AG, performance, every single thing,” the President said.
The deal to acquire used generators from Honduras to ease power woes in the approach to Christmas 2023 had been heavily criticised.
The Attorney General in January last year gave an overview leading up to the stalemate between the two sides over payment.
“APAN was contracted to install a 28.9MW HFO Power Generation Plant at Columbia, Mahaicony, consisting of 17 generators pursuant to a Turnkey Engineering, Procurement and Construction Agreement dated July 27, 2023, to provide emergency power to the grid. Unfortunately the contractor stated that they were unable to meet the contractual time-frame stipulated because of circumstances over which they had no control, including delay in shipping as a result of industrial unrest that affected operations in the Panama Canal,” he said.
“Sixteen of the seventeen generators have been installed and are operational. An additional generator is scheduled to come on stream shortly and this will meet the full complement of the contracted generational capacity. The process of a transition from LFO (Light Fuel Oil) to HFO is ongoing and the contractor has undertaken that this process will be completed by the end of March 2025,” he added.
Kesh Nandlall also told this newspaper that the company was contracted to deliver HFO gensets and had brought in LFO ones, which it said would be retrofitted to HFO but that process took longer than the contracted delivery time. He said that the generators were all functional but the issue was the timeframe for delivery.
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