The Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo) has clarified that the ongoing power outages in parts of the country are due to a gas shortage to power thermal plants, affecting electricity transmission.
This comes amid irregular power supply in parts of the country, with some analysts and a section of the public cautioning that dumsor could be making a comeback.
GRIDCo’s Corporate Communications Manager, Dzifa Bampoh, explained that the gas supply challenges stem from “commercial issues” involving agreements, payments, and negotiations with gas suppliers.
She added that this bottleneck has reduced generation capacity, leaving GRIDCo unable to transmit sufficient power to the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG).
“Currently GRIDCo as far we are aware as a transmission entity, we are aware of some commercial challenges with supply in reference to gas. When we say commercial challenges, it means there are agreements, payment, and negotiations that need to be made with the gas suppliers,” she said.
“So for us, we are unable to provide the full quantum of power supply that ECG would need to plan in the country just because there have been commercial issues related to the gas,” she added.
Madam Bampoh stressed that the outages are unrelated to the shutdown of Sunon Asogli Power Limited, which halted operations due to ECG’s debt.
Even if the Sunon Asogli plant were operational, gas supply shortages would still prevent it from functioning effectively, she noted.
“It doesn’t even have to do with the recent outages. The current outages we are experiencing including myself are really because we don’t have the full quantum of indigenous gas supply in Ghana to meet our demands.”
She assured that the situation would stabilize once the government resolves the commercial challenges with gas suppliers, restoring consistent power generation and transmission.
Source: Richard Nana Appiah Kubi/Ahotoronline.com
