| … would have had to still expend US$3.2M – DindyalChief Executive Officer of the Guyana Power and Light, Bharat Dindyal, yesterday defended the company’s decision not to accept the proposal from Florida-based Power and Energy Works (PEW) saying that the company did not propose a complete power generation plant.According to Dindyal, what Sunil Bakshi, the PEW President was supplying were just pieces of equipment that were smaller than what is required for the Demerara grid. There was no step up generators to connect to the grid. Dindyal added that the smaller engines are not efficient for the grid. GPL’s CEO Bharrat Dindyal (extreme left) making a point to Kaieteur News’ Publisher Glen Lall (extreme right)The Chief Executive Officer said, too, that the proposal by Bakshi did not include several key pieces of equipment and had they accepted that offer they would have had to invest an additional US$3.2M given that in excess of 20 pieces of critical equipment as well as civil works were not included in the proposalHe said that an unsolicited proposal was received from Bakshi on November 17, 2010 to supply four new Wartsila 8L32 generators and a complement of auxiliary equipment.Bakshi indicated that the offer was confidential and that the machines are each capable of 3.84MW and deliver power at 6.6Kv. The commercial proposal was to deliver the equipment to Georgetown (CIF) for US$15MHe explained that the Guyana Electricity Corporation, now GPL, has engaged Wartsila to supply power plants on a turn-key basis since 1992. He said that Wartsila has a worldwide sales organisation and does not use agents as is claimed by Bakshi.Dindyal said that they communicated to Bakshi that the equipment he is offering fall far short of the required complement to complete a power plant for commercial operation.“When one factors in the cost of the missing equipment, the time to acquire it and the time to complete the plant, the offer not only is very expensive but it would not be possible to complete the plant before 14 months.”He said that when a comparison of the scope of what Wartsila will supply for US$18M with what PEW is proposing to supply for US$15M, an additional US$3,235,000 has to be spent to complement what PEW is offering to complete a power plant.He said that in addition, the larger engines GPL is acquiring (7.8MW) directly from Wartsila have a higher efficiency than the 8L32 being offered by PEW.“This alone equates to US$1,242,000 in fuel savings annually…When this saving is considered along with the US$458,000 annual losses in the step-up transformers, the choice is obvious.”He said, too, that over 20 years, the present value of fuel savings totals US$24.84M (assuming eight per cent discount rate and annual fuel price increase of eight per cent).The present value of the transformer losses over 20 years is US$3.6M Dindyal told media operatives.“In addition to the economics of the proposal from Wartsila, a study conducted in 2001 recommends single machines in the range of eight megawatts to 12MW for GPI, based on the size of existing feeders…With the Chinese project,China Jerseys Cheap, GPL is now able to use units from 6MW.”He added, too, that he responded to Bakshi last Friday, and he has further proposed that PEW will reduce the equipment price to US$780,000 per megawatt.“Considering the present value of the benefits mentioned above (US$28.44 million) over the life of the equipment, the larger Wartsila Units present a far more attractive option.”Dindyal further pointed out that he did not believe that Bakshi had the equipment given the fact that he said that Warstila was keeping it. According to Dindyal this is not a practice at the company. |
