The shutdown of PowerGen was long in coming and is actually a good thing, say former energy ministers in both past PNM and PP administrations.
The Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union (OWTU), which represents most of the company’s 278 workers, is resisting plans to send them home.
However, former PNM minister Conrad Enill and former PP minister Kevin Ramnarine, who held energy portfolios in their respective governments, are saying the shutdown of the Port-of-Spain power plant, nearly 70 decades old, can actually save T&T money.
“There will be no need for natural gas, which is in short supply at this time, for this plant,” Ramnarine said.
He said the extra natural gas could be sold and would fetch additional revenue.
The Trinidad Generating Unit (TGU) at La Brea, originally built for the scrapped Aluminium Smelter Plant, has excessive power with the capacity to supply all the country’s needs for a long time said both ministers.
Ramnarine said plans to close down Powergen were in the making since 2009 under the former PNM administration.
His ministry under the last People’s Partnership government continued the process and if they had won the September 7 general election would have also shut down the plant, he said.
“It has been known for a number of years PowerGen will be shut down.
Yes, it was on the cards a long time and regardless of September 7, it was going to happen,” he added.
He said under a new Power Purchase Agreement signed between the T&T Electricity Company (T&TEC) and PowerGen there was an agreement that T&TEC would take around 20 per cent less power than before which would be supplied by the TGU.
“Hence, the need to close the Port-of-Spain plant,” Ramnarine said.
Ramnarine said the TGU, the most efficient of T&T’s four power plants, requires 8,000 kilojules per kilowatt hour while Powergen needs 14,000 kilojules per kilowatt hour.
“The TGU alone could supply half of the country’s power.”
Enill said the TGU was built to supply electricity to the smelter project planned by the former PNM administration but which was halted when the PP came into power.
He said the country had more power than it needed but added his main concern was how power would be distributed from La Brea to Port-of-Spain and environs which were serviced by Powergen.
He said the necessary infrastructure needed to be in place.
Ramnarine said the last government began the process of installing transmission lines and other infrastructure to accommodate the distribution of power from La Brea to other parts of the island and by September the work was almost completed.
He said all the necessary infrastructural work should be completed by year’s end.
He said the company had been in negotiations with the OWTU and, as far as he knew, 150 workers from PowerGen’s Port-of-Spain headquarters were to be offered voluntary early retirement (VERP).
“Some would have already accepted it and other workers were to be redeployed to PowerGen’s other two plants in Penal and Point Lisas.
There were some who would have also been offered voluntary separation of employment (VSEP).”
Ramnarine said Fitzroy Harewood, former Powergen CEO, now Petrotrin president, had overseen this process.
Enill felt the use of renewable sources of energy like wind and solar energy has to do with government policy more than anything else.
Several attempts to reach Powergen officials yesterday, as well as OWTU president Ancel Roget, were unsuccessful.
The T&T Guardian was told Powergen managers were in meetings and to call back the following day.
The OWTU said all officers were attending a colleague’s funeral. Calls to Roget’s cellphone went to voice mail.