Power transmission company, Ghana Grid Company Limited (GRIDCo), says demand for power for the first time in the nation’s history has exceeded the peak demand of 2,700MW.
This was disclosed by the Director of System Operations at GRIDCo, Mark Baah, at a presser held by the Ministry of Information on the recent power outages in parts of Accra, Winneba and Kumasi.
“Parts of Kumasi has been experiencing intermittent outages especially in the evenings, and this is due to the fact that demand has increased and so for the first time demand has crossed 3,000MW from the peak demand of 2,700MW,” he stated.
In an effort to solve a power crisis (Dumsor) between 2013 and 2015, Ghana awarded lucrative contracts to private producers to set up power plants, which drove supply to over 4,600 megawatts, well above national peak demand of 2,700 megawatts
According to energy think tank, the Institute for Energy Policies and Research (INSTEPR), the country’s peak demand for power is going to grow at approximately 10 percent year-on-year to 4,329MW by 2024.
Currently, Ghana’s total installed power capacity stands at 5,083MW with a peak demand of 2,700MW. Of which the remaining 2,300MW has been contracted on a take or pay basis.
Addressing the long hours of power outage experienced in some parts of Accra at the presser on Wednesday, March 31, Mr Baah, attributed the power outage to shortage in gas supply from the West African Gas Pipeline Company (WAPCo).
According to him, WAPCo in the early hours of Wednesday, informed the transmission company of the need to shutdown two of its power generating stations as the amount of gas needed to meet power demand was low.
“The power outage experienced on Wednesday in some parts of Accra was due to low gas supply from WAPCo, they told us to shut down two of our power generators, and so we did and we had to inform ECG about it. It had to be done because supply was lower than demand and that was what resulted in an outage,” he stated.
“So there are issues within the electrical network, the transmission and distribution network which causes outages as well as in the gas sector which affects us, so a power outage can be attributed to any of these,” he added.
On the way forward, Mr Baah, noted that GRIDCo is seeing to completion a number of projects that will address the power transmission challenges currently facing the company.
