Ghana Grid Company Limited (GRIDCo) has indicated that the collapse of a communication mast on its 330-kilovolt Aboadze-Kumasi transmission line may necessitate some load management.
The event occurred on Tuesday, November 9, 2021, in the Western Region, near Bogoso. Two GRIDCo-owned adjacent towers were impacted.
Mark Baah, GRIDCo’s Director of System Operation, said that a further examination of the incident today, Wednesday, November, 10 revealed that a third tower had been impacted.
According to GRIDCo, the incident may have an effect on electricity delivery in the country’s center belt during peak hours.
“This is a major transmission line from Aboadze to Kumasi. There was an earlier fault due to a storm on the 330kV line from Aboadze to Accra or the new Pokuase substation. The outages on these two lines caused challenges on this network and that resulted in power outages between Sunday evening and Monday morning. But those problems have been resolved. Unfortunately, yesterday evening, we noticed at the control centre that we had lost the Western line again. Eventually, our investigations show that a communication mast had collapsed on the line, pulling down some towers and destroying them.”
“Because this is a major line, one that helps us to evacuate power from Aboadze, with that line off, it reduces our ability to do so. We are however managing to get supply from other plants to ensure that we meet the demand. What is going to happen is that during peak times, voltages on the middle belt around Kumasi will be lower than expected. But we think that we can manage it to ensure that no bulk supply point goes off. If the voltages are going below levels that will lead to instability in the system, then around Kumasi and its environs we will need to manage the loads,” he added.
Additionally, Mr. Baah noted that the issue is expected to be resolved within two weeks or more, depending on the conclusion of the evaluation.
This comes on the heels of Monday’s nationwide outage.
On November 8, 2021, Takoradi, Dansoman, Nima, Teshie, Tarkwa, and other places in the Bono Region had outages.
The extensive power outage was attributed to a “significant disturbance” in GRIDCo’s power infrastructure.
It said that the incident occurred as a result of tripped electricity producing units at Aboadze and Bui.
It later said that the crisis has been resolved as of Tuesday, November 9, 2021, however, it ran into a similar issue minutes after restoring power at 4.30 a.m.
Read Also: Owusu Bempah and six others re-arrested; facing new charges
