The Ghana Grid Company Limited (GRIDCO) has indicated that the recent power outages in the Ashanti Region should be blamed on a problem on its transmission lines.
Speaking during a press conference to address the power outages issue, GRIDCo official, Engineer Vincent Boakye, explained that what has caused the power outages stems from a communication mast falling on its transmission lines.
“When Bui came back, Bui was running through it [transmission lines], we all experienced some normalcy in Kumasi but an incident happened on 9th November, 2021 where a communication tower fell on our 330-transmission line”.
Engineer Vincent Boakye
The transmission line, Engineer Boakye indicated, is GRIDCo’s supply central ‘back bone’ because “it has the land that displaces power” from Aboadze all the way through Kumasi to the Northern part of Ghana. He stated that the transmission lines help to stabilize the power system and gives good voltages.
“We’ve had a number of towers being damaged. Originally, we thought it was two but when we investigated further, we saw that part of a third tower was also damaged and it means that the supply that is coming from Aboadze to Kumasi was curtailed. From that we are not able to supply power to Kumasi and its environs the way we want”.
Engineer Vincent Boakye
Engineer Vincent Boakye’s comments follow weeks of power fluctuations in the Ashanti Region where many residents were seeking for answers as to the cause of the situation.
Ashanti Region encountering shortfalls
Due to this unfortunate incident, Engineer Vincent Boakye averred that the power supply to the Ashanti Region is encountering shortfalls in Kumasi and now across the line from Aboadze. He stated that the flow of power through the transmission lines coming from the West to Kumasi is no more there and as such they are forced to supply more power from the East.
The GRIDCo official indicated that with this, the power supply company is straining the transmission line and due to the strain, sometimes there are overloads which in turn causes outages.
“The loads on the lines, it makes the voltage of Kumasi especially during peak load go down. And when the voltages go down beyond some level, which leads to voltages collapse, it can eventually lead to system collapse”.
Engineer Vincent Boakye
Vincent Boakye noted that there is usually the need to manage the load and take some of the load off which is usually between 5-6 pm and 11pm which residents said causes inconvenience.
Prior to the press conference, the residents in the Ashanti Region called on the Energy Minister, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh to direct GRIDCo and ECG to explain to them why the problem of power outages was persisting.
Dr. Opoku Prempeh responded to the call and directed the management of GRIDCo and ECG to come and explain to the press why the problem persisted. He posited that there was the need for the residents to worry and demand explanation since they had no electricity.
The Energy Minister urged the residents not to play politics with everything because it was not necessary. He then assured that those who have been put in charge will work on the issue and find solution to the problem.
