Guyana Power & Light rakes in $12Bln
- loses $2.6Bln
Kaieteur News
August 12, 2004
THE Guyana Power and Light Inc (GPL) raked in $12Bln in revenue for last year as the company embarked on its five-year expansion programme, but its commercial losses amounted to a hefty $2.6Bln. This was disclosed by Chief Executive Officer of GPL, Robin Singh, yesterday, at a press conference the company hosted at NCN television studios on Homestretch Avenue.
Singh said the $12Bln represented 95% of the actual sales, a slight increase from the 92% collected the previous year.
The company was also able to absorb some $280M spent in excess of what was budgeted for fuel.
Singh pointed out that this was done without any increase in tariffs.
He said the company had introduced cost-saving measures.
These included negotiations on fuel price and freight rate reduction, and the maintenance contract with Wartsila.
Also, there was a significant reduction in the management fees of GPL.
He stated that GPL has also embarked on a customer data verification exercise which is expected to lead to an increase in revenue and a reduction in commercial losses.
The billing of customers currently stands at 85%, he said.
The customer data verification exercise is the first phase of the Customer Improvement Project.
This exercise seeks to validate customer information on the billing system.
A detailed meter database on the information available in the field will be reconstructed.
The exercise will be ensuring that all of GPL's customers are billed and will determine the accuracy of a customer's tariff.
Defective meters will be replaced and checks will be made for defective service connections.
Examinations will be done to detect possible tampering, and changes will be done to reduce the ability of customers to bypass the company's meter.
Customers are being encouraged to have the service changed over in their name wherever necessary.
Singh disclosed that some 32,000 customers have been visited and information have been obtained that will assist GPL in achieving the objective of the exercise.
"GPL has been able to identify a number of meters that are recording inaccurately and installations where persons have tampered with the meters," Singh said. "In cases where meters are recording inaccurately, GPL has been sending customers bills that reflect a more accurate assessment of their consumption until such time that the meters are replaced."
He revealed that GPL, in the meantime, has made arrangements to have the meters replaced and additional staff is being hired and trained to undertake the exercise.
Singh said in the cases where GPL discovers that the meter installation has been tampered with, the services will be disconnected and the customers will be required to change their meters to the new standard.
These customers are assessed for the consumption that the company determines has been used without being metered and paid for.
The services are reconnected as long as the customer has met all the necessary requirements.
Singh stated that one area of major concern is the perception that the company is increasing customers' bills by way of miscellaneous charges without any basis.
He explained that where GPL determines by a field test that a customer's meter is inaccurate, the customer's account is adjusted for a period of up to six months in accordance with the company's licence.
The adjustment is done after taking a number of factors into consideration including the customer's account history as well as the appliances installed.
Singh said in the case of tampering, customers are back-billed for a period of up to twelve months.
"I should point out that one of the goals of this project is to reduce the commercial losses in the system. Commercial losses are those that generally occur through faulty meters, inaccurate metering and theft of electricity. At the current time, it is estimated that commercial losses are in the order of 22%."
Singh emphasised the importance of the understanding by the public that the reduction of losses is critical to the company's successes and to the quality of services provided by GPL.
According to him, GPL has been able to provide a more reliable service over the last 15 months without any tariff increases.
This is in spite of the steep increases in the oil price. Giving a briefing on the ongoing frequency conversion programme, GPL's Chief Operations Officer, Bharat Dindyal, said work is currently being done in sections of Prashad Nagar, Campbellville, Kitty, and the entire Subryanville.
This phase of the conversion exercise is expected to be completed by the end of August and the entire programme is slated to be completed at the end of the year.
Some $200 million have been expended by GPL so far for this year to improve the supply of over 8,000 customers.
"The need to ultimately standardise the supply frequency in Georgetown at 60-cycle is what is driving the frequency conversion," Dindyal said.
"Necessarily, this exercise results in an improved quality of supply to customers as more transformer capacity is installed, undersized conductors and defective poles are replaced and customer service wire are either upgraded or terminal connections serviced."
He said the benefits to GPL from frequency conversion include some reduction in technical losses and standardisation of equipment, particularly transformers.
Dindyal said the greatest benefit from the frequency conversion would be the release of the Sophia frequency converters and the ability to share spare generation capacity.
The converters impact on both system losses and stability and their removal would certainly reduce losses and remove one element of system weakness, he explained.
Sections of Lodge, Wortmanville, sections of Werk-en-Rust, Campbellville, Bel Air Park and Newtown have been converted to 60-cycle.
- The remaining 50-cycle areas of Georgetown are Kingston, Thomas Lands, Cummingsburg, Alberttown, Queenstown, Robbstown, Lacytown, Bourda, Stabroek, the section of Werk-en-Rust west of Camp Street, Charlestown and some customers immediate to the East Bank public road up to Eccles.