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The Energy Minister called on Ghanaians to remain calm as action is taken to deal with intermittent blackouts that are occurring in parts of the country.
Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh said there was no way the government could allow the country to fall back into the extended period of power outages between 2012 and 2016 known as ‘dumsor’.
“We are working feverishly to resolve the challenges that have arisen as a result of the technical difficulties of our transmission lines and we hope that this problem will be resolved by the end of the year,” he said.
Dr Prempeh called yesterday when he made a one-day working visit to the Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo).
The visit was to give him first-hand information on the extent of the work currently being undertaken to address the energy challenges.
The minister said what was happening had nothing to do with financial challenges, as they were speculated, but rather purely technical.
He explained that most of the power lines that currently carry electricity to the various substations were as old as the 1950s and 1960s and had not seen noticeable improvement.
“These are our lines that we have just been informed of, were threaded in the 50s and some in the 60s. The power that he was supposed to transmit to Accra has increased considerably due to the expansion of Accra, but the lines have remained the same. They are now giving us lines that can improve the electrical situation in Accra, ”he said.
Dr Prempeh said what was needed now was Ghanaian modesty because what was planned and implemented would better improve the situation for all.
“We all need to be sincere and honest in our communication. In 2016, the whole country had times when we had to receive electricity and when we couldn’t. In 2016, the government of the day told us it was a generational problem. Even the opposition then said the government had no money to buy fuel to power the generators. It’s not a generation issue, it’s not a fuel issue, so how can we call it “Dumsor”? He asked.
He said the government included in this year’s budget the provision to improve electricity supply systems and that this would continue until the system as a whole improves.
GridCo engineers’ project manager Mr. Owusu Afriyie said the Volta-Achimota-Transmission upgrade site was built in 1965 and has not seen an upgrade since.
He said the company is in the process of upgrading it to make sure it is able to transfer more load to Accra.
Mr. Afriyie explained that when completed, the lines would increase its load capacity by about three times, from the current 420 mega watts to around 1200 mega watts.
He noted that the project had started from the Volta substation which was one of GRIDCo’s wholesale supply points in Tema to Achimota, at a distance of about 27 kilometers.
“At the end of this project, we will have more electricity at the Achimota substation transferred from the Volta substation to the Ghana Electricity Company (ECG) for distribution,” he said. He underlines.
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