-by Shamiah Grant
Construction of Guyana Power and Light’s new 69kV distribution substation at Chateau Margot is now 60 percent complete, bringing East Coast Demerara residents closer to a more stable electricity supply.
Once operational, the upgraded facility will deliver improved grid reliability for households and businesses from Ogle to Triumph.
GPL’s Team Leader, Kesh Nandlall, explained that ongoing work includes pile driving and foundation construction, with Power China responsible for project delivery.
“Pile driving and foundation work is not fully completed but is ongoing as you can see. Power China is responsible here and this will now bring resilience to this part of the East Coast including industrial sites that are going to commence this substation is going to provide electricity new and existing customers,” he said.
The substation will step down power from 69kV to 13.8kV for local distribution, creating a redundant loop that enables electricity to be rerouted around affected areas. This means fewer blackouts and faster response times for any outages.
“As we see the power coming at 69 and you will see the towers coming in and towers going out. So, towers will come in drop off 69, it will break it down to 13.8v for distribution levels and then the power will continue out back so that we can have redundances to drop off the power and the power continues towards Columbia and will drop off in other areas,” Nandlall explained.
This project is part of GPL’s US$422.2 million transmission and distribution upgrade programme, designed to strengthen the national grid and meet Guyana’s growing electricity needs.