The Ministry of Energy has stated that there is no nationwide load shedding neither has there been an attempt to embark on one.

It said outages being carried out in some areas were to allow for the contractors to tie in their works into the existing transmission lines.

“It is, therefore, false to claim, as the Minority in Parliament has, that political pressure has been brought to bear on the publishing of a load shedding timetable,” the ministry said in a statement in reaction to a press conference by the Minority in Parliament last Wednesday.

Context

At its press conference last Wednesday, the Ranking Member on the Mines and Energy Committee of Parliament, Mr John Jinapor, alleged that the Ghana Grid Company had plans to publish a load shedding timetable for the country but was stopped by the government.
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“What is even more disturbing is despite confirmation from GRIDCo a couple of weeks ago that the country will continue to experience these power outages into the foreseeable future for which reason they promised to publish a load management schedule,the anticipated schedule has since been put on hold due to political pressure from the Executive.”

He further urged the government to come clean on the real cause of the power challenges.

Response

But the Energy Ministry, in its response in a statement, explained that some of the projects ongoing in Accra and Kasoa, for example, required outages for some days.
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“The Pokuase timetable is out, starting from May 10 to May 17th, 2021. That of Kasoa is yet to be published and shall be released at the appropriate time when the necessary arrangements and consultations with the relevant stakeholders have taken place,” it stated.

It explained that some of the intermittent outages were due to feeder outages in Kumasi arising from low water levels in the Bui Dam enclave.

“Bui is a peaking plant for transmission services to Ashanti, Bono regions and the northern parts of Ghana. Bui is crucial in that it is able to energise the low voltages in power being supplied from the south into Ashanti and the north,” it added.

Trips

The statement further explained that the Prestea-Obuasi Transmission line trips, leading to a total system shutdown, affected other adjacent lines that curtailed supply and caused a system shutdown.

It said there was also gas flow challenges upstream arising from challenges in the WAPCo supply line and gas compressor faults reported by the Ghana Gas Company Limited, while there were also localised outages within the distribution chain.

It gave the assurance that despite the inherent challenges in the transmission and distribution aspects of the power sector, systematic plans had been put in place by the government and its developmental partners such as the MCC, Siemens and the AFD to create stable power supply for the country.