As power outages now common occurrences, though a reprieve since May last year, now plaguing residents and consumers, Montserrat Utilities Ltd (MUL) Manager David Thompson now reports the engine for the state of the art power station arrived on island recently.
Just over a month ago we published responses to the new spate of outages which have now continued unabated. (http://www.themontserratreporter.com/electricity-power-plant-urgenc/). General Manager Thompson said that the frequent power outages had been caused by problems with three of four generators at the power station. He said the problems were the result from recent damage caused by storms.
About May last year a refurbished set with capacity of 1350 kilowatts, was installed after being tested and refitted to meet requirements.
Now the distress of the continued outages, the Manager says that the state of the art power station arrived on island and designs for the powerhouse are being worked out on the completion of the project which is behind schedule. Mr. Thompson however says he doesn’t have a date for the completion of construction of the plant although the completion of the new plant is now several months behind schedule.
“I haven’t got a date for the power house construction but it’s the next thing on the program, what we’re looking at this moment is we’re trying to work with the contractor which is Angelique International Ltd to see what their best program achievement can be,” Thompson told ZJB radio reporters.
To add to his own doubt, he continues, “… so – at the moment we are in a bit of backwards and forwards with the contractor to see whether they can bring in additional resources to site to get the powerhouse up and ready.”
He explains further revealing that the reason for the delay is to ensure that the power station is capable of resisting hurricane force winds. “…but what’s next is to finalize the very detailed design on the powerhouse foundations for hurricane proof. Then we can put the power station, the powerhouse actually up,” saying it’s been designed in America where they are familiar with dealing with hurricane situations. “And then once the powerhouse is up we can start work on the detailed electrical connections,” he concludes.
The information coming from the ZJB report suggests what comes as a complete surprise as one would have expected progress to be far more advanced by this time. It says while the designs for the powerhouse are being completed, preparations are continuing on the ground for construction of the foundation.
Much debate has gone into the fact as to the need that the project is financed by the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB)and the (DFiD)Department for International Development. DFID is providing 22.4 million dollars for the project while the CDB is providing 6.7 million dollars through a soft loan and an additional one million dollars in grants. MUL and the Government of Montserrat are providing in kind contributions of six million dollars in land and local resources to the project.
There is yet to be clarity the plant cost $36 million and why HMG after being told this (if that is what they were told) supplied only 22.4 million dollars with the Government’s in kind contribution of land etc. Mr. Yogesh Gupta for Angelique Int. Ltd. with Peter White for MUL signed the contract which was due to begin December 5, 2013, which was to run for 18 months. The contract beginning was immediately postponed for a couple months.
Speculations when the ground breaking took place late July 2014 was that it was facilitating Dr. Kato Kimbugwe who had been very critical of the delay in getting the project off the ground. The belief was they were not quite ready, but the DFID rep was soon end his tour of duty and wanted to have at least one accomplishment behind him. That can seem to be correct, now that the completion is not anywhere in sight. http://www.themontserratreporter.com/new-power-plant-groundbreaking/
