Ghana’s Minister for Energy Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh has stated that the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) is not carrying out a load-shedding exercise.
The power transmission company, GRIDCo and ECG, in a joint statement last week, hinted that the reduction in the volume of gas from Nigeria as announced by the West African Gas Pipeline Company (WAPCo) is likely to result in load-shedding management.
Answering questions in Parliament on Wednesday about recent power outages across the country, the Energy Minister, Dr Opoku Prempeh, explained that the erratic power supply in the country is not a result of load shedding.
“No, ECG was not undertaking load-shedding as of the time the question was asked about two months ago. Consumers were experiencing outages due to several factors including localised outages caused by overloaded lines and transformers,” he stated.
Dr Opoku Prempeh highlighted the rapid development in certain areas as a contributing factor.
“There are certain areas in this country where all of a sudden, the number of residents and businesses have increased. Parts of East Legon, which was purely a residential area, have now become a business district, increasing power consumption,” he noted.
“This surge in demand has strained existing infrastructure, necessitating upgrades to transformers and power lines,” he added.
He also pointed to specific incidents affecting the power supply.
“At the time the question was asked, CenPower had an emergency shutdown, resulting in an immediate loss of 40 megawatts. Additionally, maintenance work on the Amandi Power plant was ongoing,” Dr Opoku Prempeh explained.
Further compounding the issue were emergency outages requested by GRIDCo.
“These were myriads of factors that had unfortunately happened, causing power outages at different times,” he added.
Dr Opoku Prempeh emphasised that the ECG did not implement load-shedding because most outages were unplanned, preventing a pre-announced schedule.
“The reason ECG said they were not load-shedding is that most of the incidents were not planned, and so they couldn’t have come out with a pre-programme to say they were load-shedding,” he concluded.
Source: https://energynewsafrica.com