GRIDCo’s infrastructure currently under severe pressure – ACEP

Executive Director of the African Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP), Ben Boakye has observed that the infrastructure of the Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo) are currently under enormous pressure.

This, he said, has arisen because of the increase in demand as against the failure to procure bigger equipment to meet the growing population.

Mr Boakye told Dzifa Bampoh on the First Take on 3FM Thursday, April 1 that “Every year, Energy Commission plans and they tell you the rate of growth of demand in this country so whether it is Adenta, Madina, Cantonment, Airport, every locality is growing in demand.

“So, the transformer you will have will not take you two or three years to be able to supply power to the same locality because people are buying new equipment, new businesses are opening up in those areas and power demand is growing so you need to bring bigger capacity equipment to be able to address the challenge with demand growth."

“We have failed to do that over time. So now, there is too much pressure on GRIDCo’s infrastructure which is causing the trips."

“How to deal with that is when you think the load is going beyond the demand then you ECG to cut some people off."

“That is why it is important that once you can monitor in your system to know that within Adenta community the demand is moving to a certain threshold that makes it impossible for you to wheel power to them, you had to tell EC to cut some people off so that you can maintain the balance of the grid.”

Meanwhile, GRIDCo has said it has no intentions of embarking on a nationwide load shedding programme.

According to the Company, what is being experienced in some parts of Accra are part of a couple of projects to enhance power supply reliability in the Greater Accra Region.

It explained in a statement on Wednesday, March 31 that the ongoing projects appear to have heightened perceptions of impending nationwide power cuts.

“GRIDCo wishes to assure the general public that it has no intention of embarking on a nationwide load shedding programme,” it stressed in the statement.

It listed the projects as the Millennium Development Authority (MiDA)-funded Pokuase Substation and Kasoa Bulk Supply Point installations and the French Development Agency (AFD)-funded Tema-Accra Transmission Line reinforcement project.

The projects are said to be completed in the months of June and July.

GRIDCo noted that at some point during the process, the contractors will need to interconnect to the current transmission system.

For this to happen, there will be intermittent power outages at different periods to “safely connect the new installations”.

“Consequently, these outages are not nationwide and will affect only parts of Accra and Winneba.”

GRIDCo said it is working with the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), MiDA and other stakeholders to ensure minimum impact on customers in the areas to be affected.

“GRIDCo is assuring all Ghanaians that there is a concerted effort by all stakeholders, led by the Energy Ministry, to ensure consistent, accessible and reliable power supply at all times.”