Infrastructure development will be funded by the regular national budget, private sector investment and increased revenues from forest climate services, and can be seen as three phases:
- In the period 2022 to 2028, a near tripling of electricity demand will be met mainly through a combination of natural gas and the Amaila Falls Hydropower plant on the DBIS, coupled with a major expansion of solar power for the main coastal urban areas and with batteries for off-grid areas.
- From 2028 to 2032, further increases in electricity demand will be met by continued replacement of HFO, expansion of wind and solar power and the commissioning of Guyana’s second hydro plant, the site of which will be identified before 2025.
- From 2032 onwards, expansion will be determined by prevailing market conditions, but it is likely that battery and hydrogen technology will be sufficiently advanced to enable solar and wind plants to provide most new capacity increases while contributing to further downward pressure on electricity prices.
Figure 3.1 shows how renewable energy will grow to dominate Guyana’s electricity supply, while Figure 3.2 shows how a ten-fold increase in electricity demand by 2041 will be see greenhouse gas emissions stay essentially at 2018 levels. This level of decoupling of economic growth and fossil fuel use for energy is among the highest in the world. More details of how investment in transformative infrastructure will propel the energy transition are set out in the remainder of this section – showing the energy transition for:
- Demerara-Berbice Interconnected System (DBIS)
- Isolated Grids: Linden, Essequibo Coast, Bartica, Lethem, Kwakwani, Mabaruma, Port Kaituma, Mahdia, Leguan, Wakenaam, Matthews Ridge with Essequibo
Coast, Linden, Leguan and Wakenaam being integrated with DBIS by 2027
- Unconnected Communities
Details are also provided for the other major investment in a modernised Transmission and Distribution (T&D) System.
