Minister for Energy and Green Transition, Dr. John Abdulai Jinapor, has attributed Thursday morning’s power outage in parts of the country to the temporary system currently supporting operations at the Akosombo generating station, assuring consumers that a permanent solution is expected to be completed next month.
Dr. Jinapor said the temporary arrangement was introduced following a major incident at Akosombo which left authorities with two options, completely shut down the plant for about six months to undertake repairs or deploy an interim solution to keep electricity flowing while a permanent control system was constructed.
He said, as Energy Minister, he opted for the temporary arrangement to avoid a prolonged shutdown of the plant and the severe consequences that could have had for electricity supply.
According to him, the interim system has supported power generation for several months but remains relatively fragile and can automatically take Akosombo off the system when there is a significant frequency disturbance.
“This morning, you realised that we had a bit of some disturbance with power supply,” he said, explaining that the vulnerability of the temporary arrangement was known from the outset.
Dr. Jinapor disclosed that work on the permanent control facility is expected to be completed next month, after which Akosombo should return to a more resilient operating arrangement.
He acknowledged that some consumers experienced outages lasting between one hour and one-and-a-half hours, but argued that the temporary inconvenience must be weighed against the alternative of taking Akosombo completely offline for six months.
“I can’t compare that to six months of Akosombo perpetually down,” he said.
The Minister apologised for the disruption and appealed for public understanding while engineers complete the permanent solution.
He said power had already been restored to almost all affected areas and assured consumers yet to be reconnected that their supply would be restored as soon as possible.
Dr. Jinapor gave the update while representing President John Dramani Mahama as Guest of Honour at the commissioning of the new Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) head office complex.
