Investigate Sunday’s nationwide blackout - IPPs to Gov’t

The Chamber of Independent Power Producers, Distributors, and Bulk Consumers (CIPDiB) is demanding investigations into the power outage  that plunged Ghana into blackout on Sunday, March 7, 2021.

The Chief Executive of the Chamber, Elikplim Apetorgbor, speaking on the recent power outage in an interview on Accra-based Citi FM said the IPPs are concerned about the reliability, security, and integrity of the grid.

According to him, "GRIDCo's role in the electricity value chain is a sensitive one. We have every reason to be worried, so we expect a thorough technical investigation and evaluation to ascertain the cause of the blackout or the grid failure that we experienced. And the findings should be made public as well as appropriate measures are taken to forestall future occurrences.".

Meanwhile the Ghana Grid Company Limited (GRIDCo) has said "a challenge to the power system led to a total system shutdown around 2:10 p.m. local time."

GRIDCo said the country is not back to an erratic power supply popularly known as dumsor.

Ebenezer Amankwah, the Corporate Communications Manager at GRIDCo said overloads on other adjacent transmission lines leading to a sequence of trips and an eventual power system shutdown in the country and noted that the "engineers of the team were able to address the problem within a specific period."

"Dumsor is not back, I know people will be asking questions. We have adequate generation capacity to meet demand in the country. Issues like this happen when there's gas flow challenges and other few challenges but the assurance is that we have qualified engineers and a technical team who are on standby to address some of these challenges so yesterday was a clear example of commitment to ensure a stable power system for all Ghanaians to enjoy," he stated.