The Executive Director of the Africa Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP), Benjamin Boakye has told the managers of the power sector and the government to admit that the country is facing power generation issues, leading to the outages.
To him, the power cuts are purely generational problems.
Speaking on this issue on the Ghana Tonight show on TV3 Monday, March 11, Ben Boakye said “It is inaccurate to say you have 600 transformers that are all faulty and overaged, it means that we haven’t invested in all of these transformers over the years. It [power outages] is purely a generation problem and I think we should own up to admit that we have a problem with the generation.
“Everybody in the sector knows that we don’t have enough gas, we don’t have enough liquids to be able to generate electricity. We do agree that ECG has had its problems with investments and the rest of it, even though we disagree because if you look at where we were in 2016 which brought in PDS, the total investment that was to be done was about 500 million over 5 years to be able to retool ECG, they have done far more than that and the inefficiencies have increased.
“So, what did they do with that money that today we are saying still being told that we have over 600 transformers to replace and that is what is causing the power outages, I don’t think that is really accurate and the right information should be put out and the proper mitigation should be taken.”
It is recalled that the Managing Director (MD) of the ECG, Samuel Dubik Mahama earlier this month, while addressing concerns about the frequent power cuts, indicated that the ECG was facing some maintenance issues.
“We are having major maintenance issues. The issue we are having now has nothing to do with fuel. You are relying on a power plant that is to give you about 360 megawatts then around 4 pm the gas emergency safety valve has a problem. What do you do? It is a machine,” he said.
On Monday, March 11, 2024, the Company further explained that so far, 630 distribution transformers within communities across its operational areas have been identified to be full to capacity due to increased power demand.
That, it said, may result in blown fuses and broken conductors causing outages, especially during the peak load period (7pm – 11pm) in the affected areas.
“However, we wish to assure our customers that transformer upgrading, and new projects are on-going to relieve these transformers to ensure a more reliable power supply,” the post added.
“Customers within the underlisted communities/localities are therefore advised to report any localised outage or voltage fluctuations to the ECG Call Center on 0302-611611 (also available on WhatsApp) or reach us on our social media handles via ECGghOfficial (Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram) for prompt rectification,” it said on its X platform.