Oil-Rich, Electricity-Poor: What Will It Take To Move Guyana Beyond Blackouts?

By NAN Business Editor, NewsAmericas Now

News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Tues. Sept. 15, 2026: Guyana is one of the fastest-growing oil economies in the Caribbean and Latin America. However, its electricity grid is struggling to keep the lights on for the people living above that oil and residents are still dealing with blackouts in 2026 much like Cubans.

President Irfaan Ali acknowledged on Monday that state-owned Guyana Power and Light has not kept pace with the country’s development, citing an assessment by Dominican Republic-based InterEnergy, hired at $650,000 monthly to oversee grid improvements. According to that assessment, demand on the Demerara-Berbice Interconnected System surged 18% in under two years, from 205 megawatts in 2024 to 242.6 megawatts by August 2026, compared to just 4% growth across the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean over a similar period. The system serves roughly 230,000 customers.

“We cannot continue with an unreliable system and a system that is not designed to do what the country wants it to do, what the development requires,” Ali said, according to Demerara Waves, pointing to new hotels and industries straining a grid built for a different era.

Former electricity minister David Patterson was blunter over the weekend, calling the current crisis “completely avoidable.” He noted each new hotel alone adds roughly 1.5 megawatts of demand to an aging network. “This is already predicted so you have to be ahead of the curve,” he said, criticizing the government for focusing almost entirely on a 300-megawatt natural gas plant still under construction after five years, while renting two Karpowership power ships at more than $200,000 per day as a stopgap, rather than buying and installing additional generators years ago.

The scale of what’s coming

The problem is set to get dramatically worse before it gets better. InterEnergy projects electricity demand will grow 138% by 2029, meaning Guyana will need roughly twice as much power in just five years as it uses today, driven by continued housing, business and industrial growth. GPL alone could gain 62,000 new customers as that development continues.

Ali’s comments came just after an official visit to Qatar, where he said the Gulf nation expressed readiness to help improve Guyana’s electricity sector. The pairing is notable: Qatar, like Guyana, built its modern economy on hydrocarbon wealth, but unlike Guyana today, Qatar’s electricity grid is now considered one of the most reliable in the world, with round-the-clock power taken for granted by residents and businesses alike. Gulf states largely solved reliability problems like the one Guyana faces now through massive, front-loaded investment in generation capacity, transmission infrastructure and digitized grid management, often decades before demand actually caught up, rather than scrambling to expand capacity after growth had already outpaced supply.

What InterEnergy says needs to happen

According to Ali, InterEnergy’s recommendations include establishing an independent grid reliability task force, rolling out smart metering and digitization, adding new generating capacity, and investing simultaneously in both transmission and distribution, the latter often overlooked in favor of headline-grabbing generation projects. The report specifically flags that GPL’s focus on transmission alone is insufficient given the growth of apartment buildings, industrial zones and new housing schemes that require modernized distribution networks, not just more power flowing through existing lines.

GPL is currently building new high-voltage transmission lines and substations in the DBIS at a cost of $800 million. Guyana’s Finance Ministry is separately working to cover rising fuel costs for GPL, described by Ali as “tens of billions of dollars,” to keep those costs from being passed directly to consumers.

“We have to bite the bullet, make the investment, and this is what the report is saying, it’s not a short-term fix, and we have to, of course, hold people accountable in this process,” Ali said.

Whether that accountability includes changes at GPL’s leadership remains unclear; Ali did not address the question directly.

In Parliament, Public Utilities Minister Deodat Indar said the state-owned GPL, Inc. will receive a GY$25 billion subsidy to prevent consumers from paying more for electricity due to higher generator fuel prices. Replying to questions from Forward Guyana Movement’s MP, Amanza Walton-Desir, during consideration of proposed expenditures in the 2026 national budget, he explained that GPL budgets at a breakeven point of about US$70 per barrel, noting that any price increase above that means that GPL will operate at a loss.

Indar said that last year, the fuel price was US$83.00 per barrel, and for every dollar increase in fuel, it costs GPL GY$543 million “simply because of the amount that is used.” He added that 93 percent of the fuel that GPL uses is heavy fuel oil (HFO) and the remainder light fuel oil (LFO) at a cost of GY$47 billion annually. “It represents the lion’s share of generation cost, so because of that, we, as a government, did not increase fuel on anybody in the country,” he said.

OPPOSITION LEADER

Guyana’s opposition We Invest in Nationhood, (WIN), said on Facebook that “$2 Billion USD (was) spent so far on the unfinished and much delayed Gas to Energy project while Guyanese still faces blackout everyday.”

“This is by far the most expensive project in our country’s history, and the PPP Government promised completion in 2024, and electricity will be slashed by 50%, yet we are approaching 2027 with more blackouts while the 2 power ships are sucking us dry daily. This is the proper governance the PPP boasted of,” the statement added.

FUEL SHORTAGE

Meanwhile, Ali also acknowledged on Monday that there is a fuel shortage due to damage to one of SOL’s anchorages, but he said he was assured that supplies for that company would be arriving on Monday night.

“I met with fuel importers today to address the current fuel shortages. I’ve been assured that shipments are expected as early as tonight, with additional supplies already being sourced to meet national demand,” he said on his Facebook page following a meeting with all suppliers. The President said he has ordered GUYOIL to maximize all of its storage capacity.

NewsAmericasNow will continue tracking Guyana’s electricity infrastructure and energy investments. Reporting from Demerara Waves contributed to this story.

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