Dumsor Return: ECG And GRIDCo Attribute Power Cuts To Gas Supply Challenges

• The Electricity Company of Ghana and the Ghana Grid Company have released a statement on the recent unstable power supply
• The two companies attributed recent power challenges to technical issues at the Ghana National Gas Company’s Gas Processing Plant
• GRIDCo and ECG apologised to Ghanaians in a combined statement and gave assurances that engineers were working on a solution

Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) and the Ghana Grid Company LTD (GRIDCo) have blamed recent power challenges on technical challenges at the Ghana National Gas Company’s Gas Processing Plant in Atuabo.

Parts of Ghana have faced uneven power supply, which the authorities are attributing to limited gas supply for power generation.

In a statement, GRIDCo and ECG apologised to Ghanaians for the lapses in power supply and gave assurances that engineers were working to resolve the issue.

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"GRIDCo and ECG will continue to monitor the situation, which is expected to normalise once the plant issues are addressed."

However, it did not provide timelines for addressing the power challenges. Before this announcement, Ghanaians had been complaining that dumsor, slang for an unstable power supply, had returned to parts of Ghana.

Earlier gas supply challenges

In June, the West African Gas Pipeline Company said a gas supplier's maintenance work caused power cuts in Ghana.

The reduced supply limited power generation capacity, resulting in power outages in Accra, among other cities in the country.

GRIDCo and ECG implemented a load management schedule at the time to manage the country's available energy over three weeks.

During an earlier stretch of power cuts, the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission fined board members of the Electricity Company of Ghana for not providing a load-shedding timetable.

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PURC gives warning about ECG debts

YEN.com.gh reported that the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission recently warned that the ECG's debts had reached unsustainable levels.

The commission said the company was struggling to generate enough revenue to pay workers and believed a collapse under debt was looming.

This has led to some calls for the government to privatise some parts of the ECG's functions to improve efficiency and enhance power delivery.

Proofread by Bruce Douglas, senior copy editor at YEN.com.gh

Source: YEN.com.gh