…says opportunity now for affordability, sustainability
With Guyana moving ahead with its gas-to-shore project, this transition to natural gas will see the country recording its highest level of emission reduction in any of the renewable energy sources.
“If you go to very sustainable projects that are not affordable, they will fail. They have to be affordable, that’s the key message. And I think the opportunity now for Guyana is really to go towards that and to go towards both affordability and sustainability,” he stated.This is according to Regional Product Director of General Electric (GE), John Ingham. GE is a world energy leader providing equipment, solutions and services across the energy value chain from generation to consumption.
With over 30 years in the energy sector, Ingham has worked on projects that have seen about 10 million tonnes per year of CO2 reduction. He has been conducting work in Guyana over the past five years looking for possible solutions for the country’s transition to renewable energy.
During a presentation at the recently concluded International Energy Conference hosted at the Guyana Marriott Hotel in Guyana this week, Ingham said there is a lot of possibilities for Guyana’s energy transition.
However, he posited that natural gas power is seen today as a key factor in the transition process.
“I always say that gas is the only source of power which you can have where you want and when you want. And this is a difficulty of integrating renewables into the systems because you don’t always have sun, you don’t always have wind, you don’t always have hydro… Gas is a fundamental enabler of renewables,” the energy expert pointed out.
According to Ingham, gas power is a counterintuitive movement, which has seen the power sector in the United States reducing its emissions by 33 per cent – the largest CO2 reducer in the last 10 years – and 40 per cent of that reduction was from moving to gas. He posited that Guyana could record similar reductions.
“The largest step for Guyana in emission reduction will be the introduction of natural gas. You will never have such a big reduction in a single movement after that. Hopefully, you will get to zero but the biggest reduction will be the introduction of natural gas… Just moving to natural gas will take you at least to 50 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and I think it’s a huge opportunity for Guyana to lead in that regard,” he stated.
However, Ingham outlined that the natural gas plant that Guyana is pursuing cannot only be built for natural gas use but must allow for the penetration of renewables such as wind and solar.
“The plant has to be designed with that in mind. It can’t be designed as a stationary plant that will remain operating with gas all its life,” he asserted.
The energy expert went on to talk about the key attributes that should be considered for the natural plant which the Guyana Government is planning to construct on the West Coast of Demerara, including reliability and availability.
Moreover, he underscored the importance of having the necessary infrastructure to support the increased capacity that will be added to the national grid with not just the gas plant but also other renewable energy projects that the Government is currently undertaking and future ones.
“This is key for the country to have this reliable grid… You can’t operate a grid that’s not stable,” the expert posited, while adding that having fuel flexibility at the gas plant is also critical for the country’s energy security.
Ingham further outlined that bringing the gas from offshore will not only lower electricity cost in the country but will also provide higher efficiency in power generation as well as the cost of production and maintenance.
“That stable grid is important not only for the renewables that come in but also for the maintenance of the cost. So, it’s your lightbulbs not flickering, your fridge is not burning out, your air conditioning is not burning out because of that stable grid.”
To this end, Ingham touted the use of his company’s aeroderivative gas turbine for sustained reliability of power. He cited other countries in the Region including Bahamas that are using this type of turbine to support its energy operations.
In fact, to bring it closer to Guyana, he disclosed that even ExxonMobil’s latest Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessel to start operations offshore Guyana – Liza Unity – is using these turbines to power its operations in the Stabroek Block.
The PPP/C Government is pursuing the US$900 million game-changing initiative that will see gas from the Liza Field in the Stabroek Block offshore Guyana being piped onshore to generate power.
The main objective of the project is to transport sufficient gas from the offshore oil operations to supply some 200-250 megawatts of energy to the national grid by 2024, leading to a significant reduction in electricity costs. It entails the construction of a 225 km pipeline to transport the guaranteed minimum of 50 mmscfd of natural gas from offshore Guyana to the Wales Development Authority, West Demerara.
Only this week, Head of the Gas-to-Shore Taskforce, Winston Brassington updated stakeholders at the Energy Conference on the project, stating that some 21 companies have submitted Expressions of Interest (EoIs) to be pre-qualified for the construction of the project which is being executed jointly with a natural gas-fired power plant and a natural gas liquids (NGL) plant.
