The Ghana Grid Company Limited (GRIDCo) is warning of a worsening power supply to electricity consumers.
The ongoing load shedding is set to get worse because of an emergency shutdown of another generator at the Volta River Authority’s Thermal Power Plant at Aboadze.
GRIDCo’s announcement comes 24 hours after Deputy Energy Minister, John Jinapor, declared that the ongoing load shedding will end by midday, Tuesday.
But Head of Public Relations at GRIDCo, Albert Kwesi Quainoo confirmed the contrary to Joy FM on Wednesday
When asked if consumers should expect more blackouts, he replied in affirmative – yes.
“It basically means that periodic outage that we have been having as a result of the power curtailment programme is going to be worse than it used to be.”
Mr. Quainoo in an earlier statement noted: “The non-availability of this additional generator has worsened the power supply deficit hence will require GRIDCo to manage the load carefully to avoid a total shutdown of the system. This may result in some power curtailment during peak periods until the VRA generator is restored to service.”
He said, “The repairs on the generator in Aboadze was originally expected to have been completed on Sunday, however, due to some complications it is now expected to be restored to service by Sunday, February 23, 2014.”
“Currently, all three (3 No.) units at VRA’s Thermal Plant in Aboadze are not in service,” he said.
Hopefully, he noted, the expansion and maintenance works which are already ongoing at the TIC° and VRA’s Thermal Plant at Aboadze are expected to be completed by the end of the second quarter of this year.
GRIDCo has therefore appealed to the general public to conserve electricity by switching off appliances and equipment which are not in use.