ECG’S double jeopardy 

-Bears brunt of customers while losing revenue though not responsible for power cuts

By Elvis DARKO, Accra

Power cuts being experienced by Ghanaians are primarily attributed to planned maintenance, faults, and insufficient fuel supply, resulting in a cumulative loss of up to 1,455 megawatts.

Therefore, it is misplaced to blame the challenge on Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) which distributes power to homes and institutions.

Setbacks during maintenance

Planned maintenance of power plants faced setbacks as work on some plants extended beyond the anticipated duration due to unexpected faults.

This prolonged maintenance period disrupted contingency plans for crude oil needed to sustain certain combined cycle plants during the maintenance phase.

As a result, there were shortages in crude oil supplies, and the process of procuring additional crude oil led to further generation shortages, resulting in instances of load shedding.

It is anticipated that the situation will improve by the end of next month, as sufficient crude oil will become available, and maintenance works on most plants would have been completed.

Strain on an already pressured system

The increasing demand for electricity outside the central parts of the country is exacerbating the strain on an already pressured system.

Effects of inadequate redundancies

Inadequate redundancies within the system mean that a single fault can cause multiple lines to trip, and the limited availability of capacitor banks restricts the ability to modulate voltage, resulting in a degradation of the quality of supply.

ECG hit with revenue shortfalls

Furthermore, the high incidence of load shedding is imposing significant costs on ECG, as the unsold energy translates into shortfalls in the company’s monthly collections.

ECP pays IPPs without ESLA, Delta Fund support

Currently, ECG bears the responsibility of paying all Independent Power Producers (IPPs), without support from the Energy Sector Levy Act (ESLA) or the Delta Fund.

This highlights the significant financial turnaround achieved by ECG over the past year and a half.

ECG serves over 80% of Ghanaians and purchases over 90% of the power produced in Ghana.

The company interfaces directly with customers and therefore, suffers the brunt of customers anger during power cuts.

ECG distributes electricity in the Southern part of Ghana across six administrative regions i.e. Greater Accra, Eastern, Volta, Ashanti, Western and Central Region with a customer population of about four million.

Generally, electricity goes through a three-step process before arriving at the end-user for consumption.

Power is produced from generators that are usually located far from the load centres, the power is transported over the transmission grid, which is composed of transmission lines, transformers and other components, to the bulk load distribution substations and, power is delivered to the individual customer sites from the bulk load distribution substations using distribution lines.

3,618 megawatts peak demand

Ghana’s peak demand has surged to 3,618 megawatts (MW), significantly exceeding the available capacity of 3,251 MW.

5,626 megawatts installed capacity

With an installed capacity of 5,626 MW, the nation is only utilizing approximately 58% of its total capacity, leaving a considerable deficit of 2,375 MW.

Causes of generation shortfalls

A schedule from GRIDCo for March 27 to April 2, 2024, outlines that 740 megawatts were unavailable due to maintenance, 595 megawatts due to inadequate fuel supply, and 120 megawatts due to faults.

The breakdown of the 740 megawatts units not available due to maintenance are Bui Unit 3,-100 megawatts, Twin City Plant -200 megawatts, Ameri-250 megawatts, Siemens Units-80 megawatts and Tico unit 1-110 megawatts.

The power plants not available due to inadequate fuel are Cenit- 110MW, Asogli phase 1-180MW, Kpone Thermal Power Plant-105 and AKSA-200MW.

Insufficient gas supply remains a challenge for running thermal plants to meet electricity demand, leading to load shedding of 380 megawatts during normal times and 505 megawatts during peak hours.

Ghana’s annual electricity demand increased of 10%