The Minister for Energy and Green Transition, Dr John Abdulai Jinapor, has assured that government is working around the clock to restore reliable power supply across the country.
Speaking at the Government Accountability Series held at the Presidency in Accra yesterday, he indicated that two out of the six units at the control room of Ghana Grid Company, which were affected by a fire outbreak at Akosombo over the weekend, had been restored.
Dr Jinapor explained that the restored units would make an additional 280 megawatts of power available for distribution.
He noted that a third unit was in the process of being brought on stream at the time of the briefing, while the remaining units were expected to be restored within the week.
The Minister stated that although the ministry, in collaboration with its agencies, was undertaking a transformer replacement and upgrade programme, the power situation had been worsened by the fire, which affected the control room responsible for power evacuation at the facility.
He indicated that the incident left more than 1,000 megawatts of power stranded at the plant, thereby affecting supply to homes and industries over the weekend.
Dr Jinapor reaffirmed government’s commitment to ensuring uninterrupted power supply across the country.
He said the government remained determined to ensure that all Ghanaians enjoyed stable electricity, adding that engineers were working tirelessly on site to restore full operations.
On the transformer replacement and upgrade exercise, Dr Jinapor disclosed that more than 200 obsolete transformers had so far been replaced to improve efficiency in the power distribution system.
He added that an additional 140 transformers were expected to be replaced across the country this year.
According to him, some of the transformers had been in use for more than 30 years, with demand far exceeding their capacity.
Dr Jinapor further stated that as efforts continued to restore normalcy in the energy sector, the Electricity Company of Ghana would provide periodic updates on areas likely to experience outages to enable consumers plan effectively.
He, however, maintained that the sector remained resilient and capable of meeting the country’s energy demands, describing the current challenges as temporary.
BY JULIUS YAO PETETSI
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