The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), the company responsible for power distribution in southern Ghana, has recorded over Gh¢6 billion (an equivalent of US$502 million) in losses in nine months in 2023, energynewsafrica.com can report.
This comprises technical, commercial and collection losses.
The technical loss component is Gh¢1,279,369,021.42, while that of the commercial loss is pegged at Gh¢2,758,872,791.21.
This resulted in a total system loss of about Gh¢4,038,241,812.63.
Aside from this, the power distributor also recorded a collection loss of Gh¢2,050,373,143.47 as of September 2023, thus, bringing the overall losses to Gh¢6,088,614,956.1.
In 2022, ECG recorded a technical loss of Gh¢747,097,256.14 and a commercial loss of Gh¢1,852,597,985.96.
However, in just nine months into 2023, the power distributor has recorded a technical loss of Gh¢1,279,369,021.42 while commercial loss has also hit Gh¢2,758,872,791.21.
In 2022, the total system losses were about Gh¢2,599,695,242.10.
However, as of September 2023, the system has witnessed a substantial increase to around Gh¢4,038,241,812.63.
Interestingly, on a positive note, collection losses exhibited a decrease, totalling Gh¢2,050,373,143.47 in the nine months of 2023, compared to Gh¢2,448,770,084.34 in 2022.
These figures were contained in a presentation by the Minister for Energy, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh last Thursday during the Meet-The -Press Series at the Ministry of Information.
Technical losses stemmed from the distribution network due to the cables, overhead lines, transformers and other substation equipment used to transfer electricity.
Commercial losses, on the other hand, encapsulated income shortfalls attributable to non-payment, delinquency, bad debts from ECG customers and power theft.
Touching on the measures being adopted to address the situation, Minister Opoku Prempeh said there is ongoing validation of downstream assets of ECG to ensure full capture and billing of all consumers connected to the ECG network.
He explained that an estimated two million consumers, who have not been captured, are expected to be regularised into ECG’s billing system.
He further said there is an ongoing installation of 800,000-meter management system-compliant smart prepayment meters to address shortages and improve energy accounting, billing and vending of electricity.
According to the Minister, ECG’s nationwide revenue mobilisation initiative has more than doubled the company’s monthly collections from Gh¢480 million to Gh¢1.1 billion, representing an increase of 130 per cent.
Source: https://energynewsafrica.com