PURC Commissions Fact Finding Committee on Power System Collapse

The Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC), has commissioned a five-member Fact Finding Committee to conduct technical and operational investigations into the causes of the three total system collapse in the past four months.

A statement from PURC signed by Nana Yaa Akyempim Jantuah, Director of Public Relations and External Affairs, said the establishment of the committee was in line with the PURC Act which mandated it to initiate and conduct investigations into standards of quality of service provided to consumers.

It said, initial information gathered by the Commission indicated that two of these power total systems collapse which occurred on December 7, 2011 and February 26, 2012 might have been due to equipment failures at the Switch Yard at Akosombo.

However, preliminary reports by GRIDCo revealed that the third total system collapse which occurred on March 21, 2012 was a result of decay of voltages on the bus at Akosombo due to an unscheduled import of energy from the Ghana System by CIE of La Cote d’Ivoire.

The statement said the fact finding committee would assess and determine the root causes of three total system collapses which occurred over the past four months and identify critical areas in the national interconnected transmission system that could cause Total System Collapse.

Other areas of the committee’s work include checking the status of transitional arrangements for assets transfer and operations between GRIDCo and the Volta River Authority and to ascertain the current generation Reserve Margin of the system and its impact on the stability of the power system.

The Committee is expected to present their findings in four weeks.

Members of the Committee are, Mr Stephen Akuoko as Chairman, Mr G.D. Boateng, Dr Ferdinand Tay, Mr Andrew Lawson, Mr Micahel Odonkor and Mr Emmanuel Fiati as Secretary to the Committee.

Inaugurating the Committee, Dr Emmanuel Annan, Chairman of PURC, said the unusual system collapses should not happen over such a short period and impressed on the committee to investigate thoroughly the causes of these challenges impeding service delivery in the electricity sector and offer solutions to prevent such occurrences in future.**