A failure of planning

Sep 20, 2026 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

(Kaieteur News) – The electricity crisis in Guyana has now reached the point where it can no longer be explained away as a series of unfortunate technical incidents, because GPL itself has acknowledged that surging demand is placing enormous pressure on the distribution network and causing feeders and transformers to overload.

Peak demand has risen from 221 megawatts last year to about 257 megawatts this month, while GPL says that the network is struggling to carry the load, resulting in increasingly frequent outages and voltage fluctuations. The problem is not just reserve generating capacity, but also that the infrastructure required to deliver that electricity to consumers has not kept pace with the extraordinary expansion in demand. GPL says it has about 265.6 megawatts of installed capacity, but the reserve margin is now dangerously thin and the distribution system is being pushed beyond what it can comfortably handle.