Dumsor in Kumasi may end in December – ECG

The Electricity Company of Ghana has said power outages in some parts of the Ashanti region may continue until December this year.

According to the Managing Director for the ECG, Kwame Agyemang Budu, the situation is a result of some construction works on the transmission lines in the region.

“From Kintampo to Tamale and Tamale to Bolgatanga, those two areas have been completed. They are yet to complete the last phase which is from Kumasi to Kintampo and by the end of the year, we should have a full 330KV transmission line from Kumasi all the way to the North.”

“All our power generators are all the way in the south and power going to the north goes through Kumasi so by the time the power gets here (Kumasi) losses are incurred, voltages are reduced so they want to establish a plant here so that power going to the north will not be a problem and it will not affect the Ashanti region as a whole,” he explained at a news conference in Kumasi Thursday.

Meanwhile, the Minister for Energy, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh, has assured the nation that there are no challenges whatsoever with power generation.

The Minister, who is also the Member of Parliament for Manhyia South and popularly referred to as ‘NAPO’, gave this assurance at a press briefing held by the Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo) in Accra to address the current power crisis in the country.

The situation, he indicated, was simply due to a technical difficulty with the transmission.

Dr. Prempeh further clarified that none of the current challenges are due to the government owing any entity and that Ghana has put in place mechanisms where every generator, transmitter, and distributor of electricity is paid something regularly.

He also disclosed that the government is also introducing a gas clearinghouse where funds will be made available to the suppliers of fuel for our generators.

At the same press briefing, GRIDCo indicated that it has no intention of embarking on a nationwide load shedding program in the months ahead and that it is carrying out key projects to enhance power supply reliability in Accra and Kumasi.

The projects are:
• Millennium Development Authority (MIDA) funded Pokuase substation and Kasoa Bulk Supply Point installation
• French Development Agency (AFD) funded the Tema-Accra transmission line reinforcement project and the 330kV Kumasi – Kintampo transmission line.

With regard to the situation in Kumasi and the northern parts of Ghana, GRIDCo explained that this stems from the inability to dispatch the Bui Hydro Electric Plant (HEP) due to the low water levels.

The implication is that all the electricity required in that area has to be supplied from the southern part of Ghana.

Source: Ghana/Starrfm.com.gh