Despite assurances given by President John Dramani Mahama that the �dumsor dumsor� he superintended over during the early part of his government was over, power transmitting firm, Ghana Grid Company Limited has announced a load management programme because of challenges with power supply. According to the company, this would result in limited power supply to consumers during peak times, that is, between 6pm and 10pm.
The announcement by GRIDco confirms earlier reports that the power operators in the country were embarking on a load management programme.
Many Ghanaians had to endure the power outages last year due to the destruction of the West Africa Gas Pipeline.
With no gas to power the thermal plants and government complaining it had no money to purchase a relatively expensive crude oil, businesses as well as residential users of electricity had to endure months of power outages.
The situation was normalised after the Gas pipeline was repaired. During the Commissioning of the 400 Bui hydro project in December last year, the government announced an end to the load shedding programme, with the president John Mahama declaring that Ghana was on its way to becoming a power exporter.
A little over a month after that declaration, GRIDco says the country has to go back to a load shedding programme.
Head of Public Relations at GRIDco, Albert Quainoo told Joy News the current challenges had been compounded by an on-going repair works on generators in the power system.
He said the non-availability of some of the generators had led to a loss of some 50 megawatts of power.
Mr Quainoo would not say when the load shedding will be over except to assure that the officials are working feverishly to resolve the problem.
Barely, two weeks ago, the Volta River Authority disclosed that Ghana could suffer another power crisis due to the "discouraging" level of water in the Akosombo Dam.
According to Samuel Fletcher, Communications Manager of the VRA, consumers should brace up for tougher times in 2015 with regard to power supply, if the rains fail to come in this year for the producer to generate the required amount of the power needed for distribution.
Speaking on Joy FM, Mr. Samuel Fletcher also called for the need to step up efforts to bring in more thermal plants to prevent the anticipated power crisis.
"Today, I can tell you that the water level in the Akosombo Dam is not encouraging," Mr. Fletcher said in an interview with Bernard Nasara Saibu, co-host of the Show. "So I am anticipating that if the rains don't become better this year, 2015 we will have a challenge; the Dam might fail [to produce power] to some extent," he stated.
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