| By Sharmain Cornette The operational days for the Old Guyana Power and Light Kingston Power Station are numbered. Plans are moving apace to construct a new power station.GPL Projects Manager,Stanford Cardinal Jerseys, Lennox McGreggorAccording to Projects Manager, Lennox McGreggor, the new operation plant which will also be located at Kingston will in fact allow for a more reliable supply of electricity.He said that it is estimated that the cost of construction will amount to about US$27M and will serve to replace expensive diesel sets the power company currently has in operation.With a 21-megawatt operational capacity fuelled by heavy fuel oil, the Projects Manager established that the plant will allow GPL to experience a significant reduction in operational costs.“The old plant will be decommissioned because the consumption right now is well over 100 gallons per megawatt-hour, which is twice the actual consumption used by the other plants,China Jerseys, so it will be phased out entirely,” McGreggor confidently asserted.He added that every effort has been engaged to get the construction process in motion.“At the moment things are coming along fine and we hope to start construction on the foundation by the end of this month,” McGreggor disclosed.He said that the power company is working towards awarding a contract for the foundation of the new power station since generators for its operation are expected to arrive within three months time.Already civil materials for the project have arrived in Guyana and, according to McGreggor, over 50 containers are currently being accommodated at Parade and Barack Streets at Kingston,Denarius Moore Tennessee Jersey, Georgetown.“We don’t want to bring in machinery and store them. We are going to prepare the foundation first, something we hope to complete by March into the first week of April. So when they bring things like the engines they can go straight unto the foundation and then the contractor will start building the power station around them.”The entire project, McGreggor said, is slated to be completed by the end of June.The completion of the new plant, he noted, will pave the way for the phasing out and ultimate decommissioning of the old power station.The old GPL Power Station at KingstonBut even before the new plant is completed,Cheap South Carolina Fighting Gamecocks Jerseys, the Project Manager disclosed that transmission lines system will have to be mounted in order to take the supply of electricity to Sophia where the power company’s distribution point is located.This phase of the project, McGreggor said, will be done at a cost of US$300,000 and will be completed in one month.The transmission set up will have to be channelled along the Lamaha Railway embankment, an area which for a number of years has been occupied by squatters.For this reason,Shane Buechele Texas Jersey, the Ministries of Housing and Public Works have been working in close collaboration to rid the area of the squatters.At the moment, GPL is preparing tender documents for the construction of the lines which will stretch for approximately five kilometres of land from Kingston to Sophia.The lines will also have to pass through Owen Street and Drury Lane, an undertaking that will see the poles being placed about 10 feet away from buildings.“We already have the poles but the other materials such as the cables and other hardware will come by the end of March. This project entails planting these poles and so we have got to cut all the trees and so forth.So it would not be safe for people to be around. Also when the system is powered up we cannot have people living there; it would be dangerous,” McGreggor insisted.Meanwhile, plans are also apace for an extension of service in Berbice between Skeldon and Number 53 Village. According to McGreggor, the power company is currently at the tendering stage of that project. “We have completed surveys and designs and the tender process will close on January 27,J.J. Watt Wisconsin Jersey, to identify a contractor.”This project, which is expected to have a duration of two and a half months, is valued at US$1.9 M and will see GPL providing all of the materials, McGreggor disclosed.Among the contractors who have tendered for the projects are Dynamic Engineering,Myles Garrett Texas A&M Jersey, Ramotar and Sons, and Cummings Electrical, all entities that are involved in the power company’s Unserved Area Electrification Project.GPL will,Russell Wilson Wisconsin Jersey, however, be offering technical support to the selected contractors,Cheap Tennessee Vols Jerseys, and inspectors will be tasked with making quality control checks throughout the project.All of the projects, McGreggor noted, are being funded by the government. |
