The second powership aimed at boosting electricity supply here arrived in Guyana on Tuesday morning. The announcement was made via a Facebook post on the Guyana Power and Light GPL page. The second Power Ship is currently in Guyana’s waters, making its way to the Demerara River where it will be docked and interconnected to GPL’s grid. Once connected, the ship will add 60 Megawatts of generation to bolster GPL’s generation capacity within the Demerara-Berbice Interconnected System DBIS GPL said.

The agreement to rent a second powership was officially signed on November 13, 2024. GPL’s head, Kesh Nandlall had signed the contract with the Managing Director of the Americas, UCC Holdings Mr. Antonio Neto. According to a release from the Ministry of Finance, the powership will supply an additional 75 megawatts of power to the national grid. The powership will be stationed in the Demerara River and will in its first phase, deliver 60 megawatts of generating capacity to the national grid. The remaining 15 megawatts will be delivered in a second phase. The first powership is being rented from the same company for a period of two years. That contract was signed between the GPL Inc. and UCI, a subsidiary of UCC Holdings, a company incorporated in the State of Qatar. UCC Holdings reportedly has a strategic alliance with Karpowership International, a Turkish company. That deal is for some 36 megawatts of power. Karpowership arrived in May and was set up at Everton, Berbice, Region Six. For the first vessel, Guyana had to pay a mobilization fee of US$1M to get the ship here and the contract, according to GPL, includes the provision of operation and maintenance services as part of the agreement. The utility company had said then, “the contract requires GPL to pay UCI a fee of 6.62 US cents per kWh as a monthly charter fee for the powership and a monthly operation and maintenance fee of 0.98 US cents per kWh, based on electricity generated.  (Kaieteur News)

Photo: The powership in the Demerara River.