Vice President Dr Bharrat Jagdeo has assured that the electricity price will not increase following the government’s move to charter a power ship to ease the recent spate of blackouts nationally.
The ship, with a total installed capacity of 36 Megawatts (MWs), is being chartered from Urbacon Concessions Investments, W.L.L (UCI) which has already received US$1M for mobilisation fees.
During his weekly media briefing today, the Vice President noted that “there will be no increase in the price of electricity because of this rental…for the next two years.”
The ship is expected to be fully operational and delivering electricity by May 8, 2024 and will be here for two years.
Jagdeo added that the Government is already investing large sums of monies to keep the price of electricity stable and this will continue.
“They are bringing the vessel, you’re paying for the capacity i.e., for the use of the equipment and the operation and maintenance cost and you (the government) have to supply the fuel…,” he said.
In a statement released earlier today, the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) Inc. explained that the contract requires GPL to pay UCI a fee of 6.62 US cents per kWh as a monthly charter fee for the power ship and a monthly operation and maintenance fee of 0.98 US cents per kWh, based on electricity generated.
The power ship is expected to operate at 96 percent availability and will be located at Everton, Berbice and will be interconnected with GPL’s Grid at 69 kV.
The power ship was last operated in Cuba as a part of contingent of similar generation assets and is expected to arrive in Guyana on May 1, 2024, subject to weather conditions.
UCI is a subsidiary of UCC Holdings of Qatar which has a strategic alliance with Karpowership International, a Turkish company.
