GPL US$5M submarine cable starts journey across Demerara River

Georgetown: Electricity supply, particularly to the West Demerara area will be greatly improved when the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) Company completes laying its US$5M submarine cable along the river bed connecting the two grids. This was underscored by Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Power Company, Bharrat Dindyal, today when he took media operatives on a short tour of the eastern landing platform for the cable at the Kingston Power Plant.  

The laying of the submarine cable is but one component of the US$42M upgrade to the system being undertaken by the Chinese Contractor and while Dindyal was not at the moment in a position to specify the figures he did say that there is sufficient liquidated damages penalty in place should the contractor default on the completion timeline.

That project is being undertaken by the China National Machinery Import and Export Corporation (CMC) and the deadline is set for September 2013.

The Chinese specialists aided with the use of local resources have commenced the laying of the Submarine cable from the western end where it will be hoisted to erected poles and connected to a sub-station in the Vreed-en-Hoop area.

Dindyal explained that the Chinese Contractor had imported into Guyana, a Corp of technical personnel, “because a cable as large as this needs people with special knowledge, but they have engaged the services of local equipment owners to transport the cable and assist with the laying.” The cable is being strung from a barge which is already at the western end of the Demerara area. As you know this is a very large cable…in fact this cable itself has the capacity to deliver over 150MW to West Demerara,” said the GPL CEO.

Dindyal used the opportunity to point out to media operatives that some years ago during the time of Guyana Electricity Corporation (GEC) there was an 11KV cable which had sank in the Demerara River and had connected the Kingston Power Station to the West Demerara facility. This cable has since been damaged by a ship’s anchor and as such has been abandoned by the company. As such the GPL CEO emphasized that the cable will be sunk to a depth of some three and a half meters into the river bed and at the ship’s channel the cable will make its way some seven meters down to avoid a reoccurrence.

This is to ensure the avoidance of rogue ships according to Dindyal, “of course you know there are incidents where ships have dragged their anchors.”  

Dindyal also used the opportunity to point out to the media that the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company (GT&T) will also be using the opportunity to ‘piggy back’ on GPL’s excavation exercise and lay its submarine fiber optic cable.

He said too that GT&T is assisting the cost of the excavation to effect the exercise, albeit a “minimal fee…So from a national perspective we are doing more than one thing.”  

The US$5M cable also includes the fiber optic cable and Dindyal again defended the use of an independent data conduit.

“The fiber optic cable will be used for communication for the SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition Systems) operations.”

 The GPL boss also pointed out that the Kingston substation will be expanded to receive the US$5M cable which will be spliced and attached upon landing at Kingston before connecting to the data management hub to monitor the system from Sophia.

 “In total we will have 70MVA transformer capacity here…In total GPL has with this new transformer a total of 250MVA sub-station capacity.”

He said that with the Chinese upgrades to the system will feature an additional 117MVA in six new substations.

Dindyal expressed optimism that progress will be sustained throughout the year and that by mid 2013 all of the scheduled works will be completed.

The GPL Boss says that the entire excavation process is expected to take some 20 days with weather being one of the formidable foreseeable challenges.

He suggested however that “the most important challenge in this case is that we are dealing with an active channel.”

Dindyal reminded that there is on a continuous basis vessels operating in the area, “and we need to work around them…so we are working with maritime administration,” which he explained has already distributed an advisory.

“Well of course people who are transiting the channel will have to understand that this equipment is operating and they have to be cautious.”  

The cable which is currently being sunk in the Demerara River for the power company arrived in Guyana at the dawn of last month and is said to weigh over 100 tonnes.