Blackout Hits Accra


Emmanual Armah Kofi Buah, Energy Minister
RESIDENTS IN most parts of Accra were plunged into total darkness for 24 hours Wednesday night following an explosion that occurred at the Achimota sub-station located at Dzorwulu in Accra.

The explosion curtailed over 186 megawatts of power from the 240 megawatts capacity required to supply power to Accra, and left only 54 megawatts for Accra East.

The Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo) has explained that a technical problem with one of the power lines feeding into the substation at Dzorwulu was the cause of Wednesday evening’s explosion.

The situation got exacerbated by another fault on one of its lines at East Legon the same day, while the outage also affected Tema and parts of the Akwapim range.

Albert Quainoo, Head of Public Relations at GRIDCo, explaining the situation to journalists in Accra yesterday, said the country still had a power deficit problem which had to be fixed, adding that it was an issue of demand and supply.

Meanwhile, GRIDCo has indicated that ‘all parts of Accra have received light except areas that have been scheduled for load shedding.’

Following the incident, Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah, Minister of Energy and Petroluem, has given assurance that government would build a new substation to contain the power cuts in Accra.

Meanwhile, GRIDCo maintains it has now restored power to the affected places.

Achimota, Dzorwulu, Osu, Teshie, La, Adenta, Madina, parts of Kasoa, Abeka and Tema, were the most affected areas.

The situation made power distributors, Electricity Company of Ghana, unable to service its clients.

 By Samuel Boadi

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