The Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana National Gas Company George Sipa Yankey has attributed today’s [Thursday] nationwide blackout to a switch over of Volta River Authority( VRA)’s machines from light crude to gas.
This is contrary to Ghana Grid Company’s (GRIDCO) assertions on the issue.
Most parts of the country were hit by power outage for a few hours after what Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) describe as a total systems collapse on the early hours of Thursday.
[contextly_sidebar id=”7aG2Glpd1KNlZkqlhTf4xiHq9hp2PKsN”]A statement from the Power Ministry explained that the blackout which occurred around 5:20am was “due to a challenge experienced by GRIDCO on a major line.”
Earlier the Chief Executive Officer of GRIDCO, William Amuna speaking of the Citi Breakfast show told Host Bernard Avle that the blackout was due to a fault in GRIDCO’s transmission lines.
“There was a fault in transmission line and when it tripped, it tripped some of the units and this is how this happened. These are rare events because the last one happened in 2010… we can’t say for now if they were caused by human beings, we are going to investigate what happened and then we will come out.”
But CEO of the Ghana National Gas Company George Sipa Yankey addressing the press this afternoon said the blackout was rather due to a switch over from their end.
‘While we sat down to do what was required of us by law, we also have to expedite our work so that we can get gas to VRA to enable them generate power to the country so far they have done a great job within the past four to five days without any power outages but this morning all of us in the country experienced some challenges and I believe that was also part of the transition from the use of fuel to gas but I believe that when we start to pump gas to Aboadze, the problem that we had this morning will cease’. He said
GRIDCO a few hours after the outage revealed power was restored to about 90 percent of areas that were affected.
Meanwhile the Ghana National Gas Company has revealed that the Atuabo gas plant has resumed operations.
The Ghana National Gas Company shut its Atuabo Gas Plant last week Friday, January 15, 2016.
The shutdown was for routine maintenance and was scheduled to come back on stream after 15 working days.
But CEO of Ghana National Gas Company George Sipa Yankey said the maintenance work was over.
According to him the Volta River Authority( VRA) will by the close of today receive gas from the plant.
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By: Vivian Kai Lokko/citifmonline.com/Ghana