By Antonio Dey | HGP Nightly News |
GEORGETOWN, GUYANA — The Guyana Power and Light Inc. (GPL) is advancing a major digital modernization of the Guyana National Control Centre (GNCC), investing approximately US$20 million to implement advanced real-time monitoring and automation technology aimed at reducing response times to power system faults and blackout events.
The facility is being equipped with an advanced Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system, marking a critical transition toward an automated smart grid designed to improve operational visibility, system balancing, and fault isolation across the Demerara-Berbice Interconnected System (DBIS).
SCADA Deployment: Real-Time Visibility and One-Click Switching
Serving as the central operational hub for national electricity dispatch, the GNCC coordinates generation plants, transmission lines, and regional distribution substations.
Speaking during a guided media tour of GPL’s capital infrastructure works, Deputy Chief Executive Officer for Strategic Operations Bharat Harjohn explained that the SCADA platform replaces manual interventions with real-time digital network control:
- Remote Switching: Operators will be able to isolate faulty distribution feeders and reroute power around localized trips directly from digital terminals at the control center.
- Network Integration: The SCADA architecture connects field equipment, smart breakers, and substation relays to the central operations room through high-speed communications links.
- Accelerated Diagnostics: The system identifies voltage drops, line overloads, and breaker trips instantaneously, pinpointing the location of network failures without having to dispatch crews for manual physical inspections.
“All the devices that are connected to the communication [network]… substation from here we can do so by just a click of a button,” Harjohn demonstrated during the facility inspection.
Two-Phase Rollout to Complete Smart Grid Transition
GPL Chief Executive Officer Kesh Nandlall confirmed that the comprehensive modernization of the control center is structured across two distinct implementation phases to ensure uninterrupted grid operations during deployment:
- Phase One Focus: Centered on establishing the foundational telecommunications backbone, connecting primary transmission substations to the central monitoring stream to deliver uninterrupted data feeds to grid operators.
- Phase Two Focus: Expands automated command functions across downstream secondary substations, enabling automated load-shedding safeguards, dynamic voltage regulation, and remote sectionalizing across newly constructed transmission lines.
“Phase one will monitor… putting in communication network through that part of the network,” Nandlall explained regarding the progressive commissioning schedule.
Modernizing Ahead of Major Generation Additions
The US$20 million GNCC upgrade forms an integral component of GPL’s broader capital program to modernize its transmission and distribution infrastructure.
With national peak power demand exceeding 240 MW and major generation assets—including the 300 MW Gas-to-Energy project at Wales—slated to feed into the DBIS, executive management noted that digital automation is indispensable. A modernized control room ensures that sudden turbine trips or line disturbances can be safely contained, preventing localized faults from cascading into system-wide blackouts.
