On September 7, 2026, Guyana’s national power utility Guyana Power and Light (GPL) launched a public appeal for energy conservation to relieve crippling grid stress driven by record high temperatures tied to the ongoing El Nino weather event, as widespread unplanned blackouts have left thousands of residents without power across the country in recent days.
Speaking at a press conference, GPL’s top leadership outlined the root of the disruptions: while the utility’s current generation capacity is sufficient to meet overall demand, but the aging distribution network has buckled under a sudden, unprecedented surge in air conditioning use during extended heatwaves.
Executive Leader Kesh Nandlall explained that the concentrated spike in energy use during evening peak hours is the primary driver of overloaded infrastructure. Peak demand, which registered at 221 megawatts in 2025, jumped to 257 megawatts on September 4, 2026 alone. Nandlall noted that peak demand occurs consistently between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m., when most Guyanese return home after a day of extreme heat. Many homes are built with concrete, which absorbs heat throughout the day and releases it slowly into indoor spaces in the evening. As a result, nearly all residents turn on their air conditioning at roughly the same time, creating a sudden, overwhelming load on the grid.
To cut unnecessary demand, Nandlall is urging all households to adjust their air conditioning thermostats to 25 degrees Celsius, a major shift from the common setting of 16 degrees Celsius. He reminded consumers that every 1-degree increase in thermostat setting cuts an air conditioner’s energy consumption by 5%, a savings that adds up to significant relief for the overstressed grid. The executive also called on any customer planning to increase their home energy load to notify GPL in advance, so the utility can upgrade infrastructure to accommodate the higher demand before it causes disruptions. He warned against the unauthorized practice of increasing fuse amperage ratings to support new air conditioning units, a trend that has exacerbated grid issues.
Deputy Chief Executive Officer Bharat Harjohn expanded on the technical problems caused by this unauthorized modification. Many homeowners have upgraded their breaker sizes to power new AC units without approval, driving excessive demand on local distribution transformers, dragging down voltage levels, and triggering automatic protective shutoffs (tripping) on overloaded feeders. Even after GPL replaced roughly 5,000 overloaded transformers across the country in recent upgrades, the core problem of an undersized distribution network persists.
Hargrove also detailed the two major outages that affected thousands of customers in the first week of September. A large outage on the night of Saturday September 5 originated from an electrical fault in a 35 megavolt-ampere transformer at the Kingston substation. The utility’s automatic protection system shut down connected generators to prevent catastrophic damage, but the delayed restoration of power triggered a cascading failure that cut output from the Garden of Eden power station, extending blackouts to additional areas. Technical teams are still working to fully resolve the lingering issues from that fault. A separate outage on the morning of September 6 was caused by an extreme current spike on the submarine cable connecting Kingston to Vreed-en-Hoop, which tripped two transformers at the end points. GPL is currently conducting an investigation to identify the root cause of that spike. Harjohn added that one of GPL’s most pressing ongoing challenges is a lack of spinning reserve capacity to quickly compensate for unexpected generator tripping.
Despite these immediate challenges, GPL confirmed that it is carrying out the largest infrastructure expansion the utility has seen since the 1960s, backed by an $800 million investment. Divisional Director of Engineering Services Ryan Ross said the investment will fund the construction of new 30 kilovolt and 69 kilovolt transmission lines, plus 350 kilometers of new medium voltage distribution lines built to higher specifications that will resolve the current feeder overloading issues.
Head of Generation and Support Services Gary Hall reaffirmed that the utility’s generation capacity is more than enough to meet current peak demand. Currently, GPL has 265.6 megawatts of available capacity online, with an additional 5 megawatts set to come online by September 9, 2026. Even with 25 megawatts of capacity temporarily taken offline for scheduled maintenance, Hall said that temporary maintenance shutdowns are standard operating procedure for power utilities, and generation capacity remains sufficient. The core weakness, he emphasized, lies in the outdated, overloaded transmission and distribution network.