A United Arab Emirates-based investment firm has signed a memorandum of understanding with Guyana Power and Light, the country's national electricity provider, setting out plans to overhaul and expand the nation's energy infrastructure. The agreement between Global South Utilities and the state utility establishes a framework under which the firm will assess, fund and develop major power projects across the country.

The memorandum was signed during a UAE trade delegation's visit to Georgetown. Guyana's Minister of Public Works and Aviation put his signature to the document alongside the chief executive of Global South Utilities, with the UAE's Minister of Foreign Trade present as a witness to the signing.

Under the terms of the agreement, the two parties will work together on upgrading existing generation and distribution networks with the aim of improving reliability across the grid. The framework also commits both sides to assessing how renewable sources might be integrated into the national power system, and to building infrastructure capable of coping with the demands of an economy that continues to grow at pace.

Guyana's economy has expanded rapidly in recent years, driven largely by offshore oil production, and now ranks among the fastest growing in the world. That growth has placed considerable strain on infrastructure that in some areas predates the oil boom by decades. Executives at Global South Utilities said the deal was designed with this transitional period in mind, noting that reliable power supply has become a pressing requirement as industrial and residential demand continues to rise.

For the UAE side, the agreement marks Global South Utilities' first venture into South America. The company, based in Abu Dhabi, has until now concentrated its investments in Africa and Central Asia. Company officials described the Guyana deal as part of a wider push to extend the firm's presence into Latin America and the Caribbean, regions where Gulf capital has historically played a smaller role than in more established markets.

The expansion into Guyana follows a period of growth for Global South Utilities elsewhere. Earlier this year the company said its infrastructure projects in Africa and Central Asia had reached a combined capacity sufficient to supply electricity to more than half a million households. Among its recent projects is a fifty megawatt solar facility with battery storage in N'Djamena, Chad, which the company says was built in eight months and now powers around 250,000 homes in the capital. The firm has also invested in manufacturing capacity in Egypt intended to localise parts of the renewable energy supply chain that had previously depended on imported components.

Company representatives said this pattern of investment reflects a shift away from standalone power projects towards a more integrated approach, in which generation, storage and, increasingly, manufacturing are developed together within a single market. They suggested the Guyana agreement would likely follow a similar path, though no timeline or financial figures have yet been disclosed for the projects under discussion.

Guyana Power and Light has faced longstanding criticism over supply interruptions, particularly outside the capital, and successive governments have pledged to address the shortfall in generation capacity. The new memorandum does not commit either party to specific projects or investment amounts, but officials from both sides described it as the foundation for more detailed agreements expected to follow in the coming months.

The signing adds to a series of recent economic agreements between Guyana and Gulf states, as Georgetown seeks to diversify the sources of investment supporting its infrastructure needs beyond its traditional partners in North America and the Caribbean. Officials from both governments said further details of the partnership, including project timelines and funding structures, would be announced once technical assessments of the national grid have been completed.

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