Ghanaians should brace themselves for an extended period of irregular power supply as the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) is set to announce a load shedding program next week.
Even though the ECG is yet to announce the programme, the country has already been experiencing erratic power cuts in the past few weeks which authorities described as a load management program.
The Volta River Authority and GridCo say the latest development is as a result of a shortfall in supply of gas from Nigeria.
The Director of Operations at ECG, Tetteh Okyne detailing plans for next week’s load shedding exercise, said they were yet to determine the volumes to be shed.
“We are still in talks with our partners within the power sector and we will be able to firm up on the quantities which we need to offload at each period of the time. Once we have that, we will come out with a programme by the beginning to the middle of next week. It will be on our website, call centres and widely circulated.”
Acting Chief Executive Officer of the Volta River Authority, Kirk Koffi also says the Sonin Asogli thermal plant was producing 150mega watts of power instead of the optimal 180 megawatts.
According to him “The current situation is mainly as a result of erratic gas supply from Nigeria. Supply for this week has been barely enough to run Asogli and our thermal machines in Tema”
He also expressed confidence that the completion of the expansion works on the Tico Power plant which is scheduled for 15th April will significantly improve the situation.
Deputy Minister of Energy, John Jinapor said government is yet to ascertain the main reason why supply of gas from Nigeria had fallen.
“We shall continue the engagement at the highest level to ensure that we receive gas in the contractual volumes or enough to bring the plants into operation”, he said.
By: Anim Boadu/citifmonline.com/Ghana