Tag: dumsor

The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has said it will undertake planned maintenance works to improve service delivery today, Thursday, 11 November 2021.

This was disclosed in a statement issued by the service provider on Thursday, 11 November 2020.

The planned maintenance works will cause an interruption in the power supply to certain areas in Accra from 9 am to 4 pm.

Affected areas include: “Ashongman Estates, Obaahemaa, Kwabenya, Comet, Agape, NIC, Ofankor, Capital hill, Asofan, Kwashieman, Fadama, Kwashiebu, Tabora, Abeka-Lapaz, Darkuman, Chantan, Israel, Santamaria, Mensah Addo, and its environs.”

The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has said it will undertake planned maintenance works to improve service delivery today, Thursday, 11 November 2021.

This was disclosed in a statement issued by the service provider on Thursday, 11 November 2020.

The planned maintenance works will cause an interruption in the power supply to certain areas in Accra from 9 am to 4 pm.

Affected areas include: “Ashongman Estates, Obaahemaa, Kwabenya, Comet, Agape, NIC, Ofankor, Capital hill, Asofan, Kwashieman, Fadama, Kwashiebu, Tabora, Abeka-Lapaz, Darkuman, Chantan, Israel, Santamaria, Mensah Addo, and its environs.”

The service provider however noted that it “regrets the inconvenience that will arise out of the exercise.

Source: classfmonline.com

Several parts of Accra will experience severe power outages between October 5 to December 5, 2021, according to a document sighted by Starrfm.com.gh.

According to the Ghana Grid Company Limited (GRIDCo), the outages are to undertake “planned works” within the AchimotaAccra Central Lines.

Some of the areas to be affected have been categorised into groups A, B, and C.

Group A Adabraka Old Timers, Mamprobi, Chorkor, Ageege, Lartebiokorshie, Valco Trust, Teachers Hall, among others.

In Group B Appolo Theatre, Asylum Down, Adabraka Market, Korle Gonno, Sukura, Mamprobi Poly Clinic, James Town, Mataheko, etc.

Group C includes Central Police Station, Cocobod, Kingsway, Abossey Okai, Chorkor, Appiah Danquah, Graphic Press House, SSNIT, etc.

Source: starrfm.com.gh

The Minister of Energy, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh has appealed to Ghanaians to remain calm as steps are taken to address the intermittent power outages being experienced in some parts of the country.

According to him, there was no way the government would allow the country to slip back into the prolonged period of power outages between 2012 and 2016 which became known as ‘Dumsor’.

“We are working feverishly to resolve the challenges which have arisen as a result of technical difficulties with our transmission lines and it is our hope that that issue will be resolved by the end of the year” he assured.

Dr Prempeh made the call yesterday when he paid a day’s working visit to the Ghana Grid Company (GridCo).

The visit was to afford him first-hand information on the scope of work currently being undertaken to address the power challenges.

The Minister said what was happening had nothing to do with financial challenges as being speculated but rather purely technical.

He explained that most of the transmission lines currently transporting electricity to the various substations were as old as the 1950s and 60s and had not witnessed any remarkable improvement.

“These our lines that we have just been informed about, were strung in the 50s and some in the 60s. The power it was supposed to transmit to Accra has increased tremendously due to the expansion of Accra yet the lines have remained the same. They are now giving us lines that can improve the power situation in Accra,” he emphasised.

Dr Prempeh said what was required now was the forbearance of the Ghanaian because what was being planned and implemented would better improve the situation for all.

“We should all be sincere and truthful in our communication. In 2016, the whole country was given periods when we are to receive power and when to be off. In 2016, the government of the day told us it was a generation problem. Even the opposition then said the government did not have money to buy fuel to power the generators. This is not a generation problem, this is not about fuel so how can we call it ‘Dumsor’?” he queried.

He said government had included in the budget for this year the provision to improve on the electricity supply systems and it was going to continue until the whole country’s system improves.

The Director of Engineers Project at GridCo, Mr Owusu Afriyie said the site for the Volta-Achimota-Transmission upgrade was constructed in 1965 and had not seen any upgrade since.

He said the company was currently upgrading it to ensure that it is able to transfer more load to Accra.

Mr Afriyie explained that when completed, the lines would increase their load capacity by about three-fold from the current 420mega watts to about 1200mega watts.

He noted that the project had commenced from the Volta substation which was one of GridCo’s Bulk Supply Point in Tema to Achimota, a distance of about 27kilometres.

“By the completion of this project, we will have more power to the Achimota substation transferred from the Volta substation to the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) to distribute,” he emphasised.

Source: www.ghanaweb.com

Government has dispelled suggestions of a return to dumsor following weeks of incessant power outages in the country.

Government has been heavily criticised by members of the public who are demanding the truth about the state of the energy sector, with some calling on the government to release a load shedding schedule to salvage the situation “We want consistency in the power supply, we don’t want dumsor to come back, but if for some reason it is, let us know the schedule so we will plan accordingly and stop destroying our electrical gadgets.”

“When Nana Addo came to power, didn’t he say he had solved the dumsor, so what is happening now?” were some of the comments from a section of Ghanaians Ghanaguardian.com interacted with.

However, reacting to the concerns, representative of the President at the Finance Ministry, Charles Aduboahen insists despite the recent outages, the country is not returning to the dumsor era.

Mr Aduboahen who was speaking to Multimedia’s Emefa Apawu on The Probe, Sunday, March 14, 2021, as monitored by Ghanaguardian.com said “our biggest challenge with the energy situation is the excess capacity charge, our installed capacity is slightly lower to 5000 megawatts and I think our peak demand is about 3000 megawatts and so we have 2000 megawatts in excess capacity.”

“In terms of the reliability of power, there was a recent incident with Gridco where there was a system shutdown. I think also the other issue may be on the gas supply’ He further stated

But when pushed by the host on whether the country is inching toward another dumsor era, Mr Aduboahen insisted, “there is no energy crisis looming, that I can reassure you.”

Source: Ghana Guardian

Accra, Aug.28, GNA – Ghana Grid Company Limited (GRIDCo) is investigating the cause of a major power disruption in parts of the Greater Accra, Ashanti, Volta and Eastern regions on Friday night.

Some residents in the affected areas told the Ghana News Agency that they experienced the power outages between 1923 hours and 1930 hours.

However, power was restored to the affected areas after almost two hours.

Some of the affected areas in the Greater Accra Region included Weija, Mallam, McCarthy Hill, Gbawe, Awoshie, Sowutuom, A-Lang, Kwashieman, Darkuman, Odorko Official Town, Santa Maria, Ablekuma Oduman, Malejor and Teshie.

A resident at Oyarifa said the power was restored at exactly 2049 hours after one and half hours.

Another resident at Sowutuom said the power was restored at her area after groping in darkness for almost two hours.

Some residents complained that they had been experiencing power outages a couple of times within this week, which had disrupted their social and economic activities.

Source: GNA

Some parts of the country especially the capital, Greater Accra, were hit with a power outage, popularly known as dumsor.

The Saturday evening power cut was not only in Accra but also experienced in the Central Region, Northern Region, Eastern Region, Upper East Region, Upper West Region, Volta Region and Oti Region.

In many parts of the capital, the unannounced dumsor happened around 21.00 GMT.

It is, however, unclear what might have triggered the latest dumsor, but some reports indicate that there was some operational challenges encountered by the Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo).

When GhanaWeb posed a question on its Facebook Timeline, many Ghanaians across the country complained about the situation.

Below are some of the reactions.

Source: www.ghanaweb.com

Business activities for many firms in the Volta and Oti regions experienced some setback after the area recorded almost two days of power outage.

The outage began at about 8:30am last Monday morning, March 9, lasted till Tuesday afternoon at about 2:00pm.

It affected most parts of the Volta region right from Keta and Aflao in the south through Ho to Hohoe and most part of Oti Region except Nkwanta North, Krachi Nchumura and Krachi West which is supplied by the Northern Electricity Distribution Company (NEDCo).

A resident at Mawuli Estate in Ho, the Volta regional capital, Felicia Edudzi, complained bitterly about the situation.

She said the current level of heat in the atmosphere made sleeping without light an unbearable experience.

Another resident, Michael Sassah, living at Housing Estates not far from the central market, said he could not work as his printing shop which relies on power was rendered dormant by the outage.

Several residents had their phones and other chargeable devices, like laptops going off, a situation which has affected many journalists and other businesses who rely on these devices to work.

Residents have been wondering if the dreaded era of frequent power cuts; locally referred to as “dumsor” (Akan) or “tsikplo” (Ewe) was back.

They blamed the Electricity Company of Ghana for not notifying them ahead of the power cut.

However, explaining the situation to the media and the public, the Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the ECG, Benjamin Obeng Antwi distanced the ECG from the power outage.

He said it was a problem from the Ghana Grid Company Limited (GRIDCo), the firm responsible for transmsitting power from the generation companies to ECG.

He said on Monday when the power went off, “We lost supply from Gridco at Akosombo. Our engineers are liaising with Gridco engineers to rectify the problem and restore supply. Affected areas include Oti Region and parts of Volta Region.Sorry for any inconvenience caused.”

Source: dailyguidenetwork.com

The Deputy Minister for Energy William Owuraku Aidoo says frequent power cuts in parts of the country over the past weeks will ease by the first week of March 2020.

Mr Aidoo who was speaking to JoyNews on February 25, 2020, said the current power outages are caused by the ongoing repair works on the gas pipeline from Nigeria to Ghana which is almost complete and power supply will soon return to normal.

“This is going to be for just a few more days, and we will come to normal… It is not as people have been saying that ‘dumsor’ is back and we’ve gone back to the bad old days again, no. This is work that needed to be done to ensure the integrity of the pipeline and gas supply to our generators,” Mr. Owuraku Aidoo said on Newsnight.”We apologise for the inconvenience… the engineers are working,” he said.

The Deputy Minister, however, recalled an announcement from his outfit on January 18, 19 and 20 informing the public of the scheduled “…major works on the pipeline, the 500 km pipeline from Nigeria to Ghana which supplies gas to mainly the Tema enclave, that there was going to be cleaning out [in] the gas pipeline and check on the integrity of the inner lining of the gas pipeline.”

“We did take steps to try and reduce to the barest minimum the interruptions in the power supply because we shouldn’t forget that Ghana, of course, we have our own indigenous gas that we can flow from the west to the east, but unfortunately because of this work, the gas from the west to the east, that is from Takoradi to the Tema enclave could not also be supplied,” Mr. Aidoo added.

He gave the assurance that gas will be introduced through the Tema end of the pipeline and supply will come back to normal once the repair works are done.

According to the Deputy Minister, a back-up arrangement to ensure the public did not suffer the impact of the exercise, hit a snag after some power plants expected to generate about 400 megawatts, went off.

“The Kpone Thermal Plant, we’ve lost one of the generators, which is giving us something in the region of 100 megawatts. We have also lost the TICO Plant [Takoradi International Plant], we’ve lost parts of it as well, which were not foreseen. We made all these plans and unfortunately this has happened. Cenpower also, we were taking 180, a combination of 360, one turbine is gone off losing 180 so when we combine these unforeseen generators that have gone off…right now we are losing something in the region of between 100 and 200 megawatts.”

“The plants that have gone down that I have enumerated amounts to well over 300, almost 400 megawatts, so that is what has caused this problem but like I said, this is going to be for a few more days and we will come back to normalcy.”

“So I’ll apologise once again on behalf of the Ministry of Energy that we will come back to normal. It is not as people have been saying that ‘dumsor’ is back and we’ve gone back to the bad old days again, no. This is work that needed to be done to ensure the integrity of the pipeline and gas supply to our generators.”

Source: primenewsghana.com

Residents of Accra and some parts of the country slept in darkness following an unannounced power outage on Thursday night.

This is in spite of the assurance by the President, Nana Akufo-Addo, that his administration had solved the persistent power outages also known as ‘dumsor’.

“Mr Speaker, all our best laid plans for industrialisation would come to naught unless we have a reliable and reasonably priced energy sector. It gives me great pleasure to be able to say that we have overcome the DUMSOR menace,” the President told MPs in his State of the Nation Address to the House on Thursday, February 20, 2020.

He added: “But, unfortunately, I cannot say that we have resolved all our energy problems. It is still work in progress.”

Hours after this declaration, however, most parts of the national capital experienced total darkness forcing some residents to take to social media platforms to vent their frustration.

There is no word yet from the power transmission company, Ghana Grid Company Limited (GRIDCo) or the distributing company, Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG).