Billions Spent, Guyana Still in the Dark as Crumbling Power Grid Buckles Under Demand

By Mark DaCosta- Our nation is once again plunged into darkness. Rolling blackouts across the country have left households sweltering and businesses counting losses, while the state power utility insists it can generate sufficient electricity. The uncomfortable truth, however, is that an economy touted as the fastest growing on earth is being let down by infrastructure that has not kept pace with prosperity. The question every Guyanese must ask is a simple one: after decades in office and billions of dollars in public spending, why does the grid still fail us?

Officials of Guyana Power and Light convened a press conference at the company’s Kingston headquarters last Monday to explain the recent outages that have darkened homes from Saturday night into Monday morning and left Guyanese in unbearable heat. Their explanation was hardly comforting. “The reality is that the distribution system is now facing challenges,” the utility’s executive leader, Kesh Nandlall, conceded, noting that “feeders are now being overloaded, transformers are being taxed and overloaded,” leaving many consumers to endure voltage fluctuations.

The arithmetic is stark. A record 257 megawatts of electricity was demanded on September 4, against an installed capacity of just 265.6 megawatts — a razor-thin margin that leaves almost no room for error. Peak demand stood at 221 megawatts a year ago, and the customer base has ballooned from roughly 201,000 in 2020 to some 250,000 today. The strain is most acute between 7pm and 9pm, when families return home in the fierce El Niño heat and switch on air conditioners, fans and appliances simultaneously. Concrete houses absorb the day’s scorching heat and release it into the evening, Nandlall observed from personal experience, prompting everyone to reach for the switch at once.