On Tuesday April 28 members of the Board of the Anguilla Electricity Company (ANGLEC) visited the Power Station for the commissioning of the new generator. This followed the installation of the hardware by engineers from its manufacturing company, assisted by local personnel.

ANGLEC General Manager Mr. Thomas Hodge said the installation process started in December last year and was just completed. He observed that his team was still running tests to make sure everything was “acceptable to our standards,” adding that those tests should take another week to complete, at which point the generator would be completely handed over by the manufacturers to the local company.

Hodge said the generator, was manufactured by Wartsila of Finland, was chosen after careful evaluation of the merits of the machine’s performance statistics and price.

View of the new generator

This is the 5th generator from the Finish Company: in 2000, two 3.1 megawatt sets were installed, with two 3.9 megawatt power-pushers going into operation in 2006. Hodge remarked that the 5.2 set represented the biggest generator at the Corito plant and added that only minor cosmetic works were left to be completed.

The electricity company boss said that, of the 15 generating sets, the number of sets running at any one time depends on the time of day (and accompanying load demand). He said typically the demand ranges from about 11 megawatts to 13 megawatts which is satisfied by at least four engines. He added that all 15 sets work with the exception of the high speed engine which is used for back-up purposes.

Mr. Hodge observed that the decision to acquire the new generator came from the anticipated load growth based on the projects that were coming to Anguilla. He said that even if only some of the projects came on stream, ANGLEC would not have been able to satisfy the demand without the new set.

Hodge noted that he was very happy that the project has reached its present stage which shows that, in the midst of a slow down in the economy and in sales, ANGLEC remained focused and continued to work diligently with the installation to make sure it was completed on time. He said the external situation was not allowed to have too much of an impact on the progression of the project.

Hodge ended by saying that the project showed the commitment of ANGLEC to high quality service in Anguilla.

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