ECG, VRA, GRIDCo summoned over load shedding

The country's power producers and distributors have been summoned to an emergency meeting today over the ongoing massive load shedding which has incapacitated many businesses and rendered homes dark.

Among other issues, the meeting would deliberate on the failure of the Electricity Company of Ghana to follow through the load shedding management timetable which is making businesses and homes unable to plan.

The meeting has been prompted by the shedding of a whopping 920 megawatts of electricity load by the ECG on Wednesday, December 2. It followed a directive from the Ghana Grid Company to the ECG. It is unclear whether the same amount of load will be shed today.

Per the Ghana Grid Company's daily peak load schedule, the peak load on December 1 was 1,594 megawatts.

Officials from the Ghana Grid Company Limited, the Volta River Althority, the ECG and other players in the sector are expected to attend the meeting called at the instance of the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission following several complaints from consumers.

Public Relations Officer of the PURC, Nana Yaa Gyantuah described the situation as disturbing, adding "we will meet them and we will find out what is going on... It [the 920 load shed] cannot be the whole country but that's a lot".

She noted the country's utilities are currently facing challenges with the generation of electricity, hence want to meet them to get firsthand information on exactly what the situation currently is to the extent that the ECG had to shed 920 megawatts of electricity Wednesday.

"Some consumers have complained that they've been off for three, four days and they've been off every evening and all that. That should be a fault because this issue of the 920 megawatts load shedding happened just today [Wednesday]. Certainly if yesterday or the day before or three days ago you've gone off, that is not load shedding," she told TV3.

Meanwhile, she has asked consumers take heart and advised them to go to the nearest ECG office to report any unusual load shedding in their area.