The Managing Director of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) Mr Kwame Agyeman-Budu has said the state power distributor will be releasing a load shedding timetable for areas that will be affected by the maintenance work being done by the Ghana Grid Company Limited (GRIDCo).
“We are coming up with a planned schedule for the areas that are going to be affected. The areas have been grouped into four.
“It has been scheduled in such a way that no single customer will see the outage throughout for the eight days.
“They will see probably 12 hours outage in the day time; the next three days they will experience the outage in the night time. It will be rotated,” he said after a media tour of the Pokuase Bulk Supply Point on Tuesday April 20
The Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo) says works on the Pokuase Power Substation would be completed by July this year.
GRIDCo said its engineers have indicated that the project will result in some power outages in the capital.
The Pokuase Bulk Supply Point, the fourth power supply under the United States government through its agency, the Millennium Challenge Corporation, is supporting the project to improve the quality of power supplied to the northern parts of Accra.
This will also address power supply challenges such as the frequent power outages and low voltages which result from increased power demand in Accra and surrounding towns.
Energy Minister Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh, who led the delegation to inspect the project said it has become necessary for Ghanaians to understand the ongoing power situation and government is making effort to make power supply more reliable.
“We plead with you to bear with us. This has become necessary because of government’s investment in the power sector. The idea is to make power supply even better after the works are done”. He stated.
Chief Executive Officer of GRIDCo, Mr Jonathan Amoako-Baah, explained, the current challenges are necessary for the improvement of the power situation in the country.
Technical controller at MIDA, Emmanuel Amuna, explained the challenges households and businesses in Accra will face when the Pokuase power point is going to be connected to the national power grid.
“During that time, we will not have power supply from Aboadze to the Volta Region. That may involve some load shedding in Accra. We are expecting about 100 megawatts during the peak period and 50 megawatts during off peak period,” he stressed.
The 33.5 million dollar Pokuase BSP is the first 330kV in Accra and the largest in the country when completed.
The Project will be developed under the existing 330kV Aboadze-Volta-Lome Transmission line at Pokuase.
Construction began in April 2019.
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SOURCE: ATLFMNEWSONLINE
