Blackouts in city after primary conductor cut in Water Street
Illegal connection found in Industrial Site area
Stabroek News
May 16, 2003
Power supply to several areas in the city was interrupted for about three hours yesterday when a piece of heavy equipment came into contact with the power distribution system on Water Street in the vicinity of the abattoir and severed a primary conductor.
The affected areas included South Cummingsburg, Water Street from New Market to Cornhill Street, Werk-en-Rust, Albouystown, Alberttown and Queenstown, a Guyana Power and Light (GPL) press release said
The release further said GPL’s line technicians discovered a piece of wire hanging from the power distribution mains in the Industrial Site area, east of the GC Sanata Textiles that was not part of GPL’s distribution system.
Meanwhile, the power company is again speaking out about the theft of electricity and unauthorised connections which it says cause very expensive damage and untold inconvenience for its customers.
The company said further it would welcome any information from customers who know of illegal connections that are already in place or are being installed.
This recent call follows the discovery by GPL’s technicians of a piece of wire that was not part of the company’s distribution system hanging from the power distribution mains in the Industrial Site area, just east of the Sanata Textiles factory.
The discovery was made, the release said, while the technicians were searching the line to identify the reason for the partial 60 hertz failure on Wednesday evening.
GPL surmised that the wire had been thrown over the high voltage primary mains which are more than 40 feet above ground in an attempt at an illegal connection or an act of malice.
That piece of wire did a lot of damage the release quoted a systems control engineer as saying. It caused a short circuit on the feeders, fed a power surge back to the Sophia controls and extensively damaged the circuit breaker which in turn interrupted the 60 hertz system at around 5:30 pm on Wednesday. However, the release added, most of the affected areas were repowered by 7 pm but a section of Industrial Site was still out yesterday morning since it had to be isolated to allow for repairs to the feeder source.
