Ghana must urgently invest in stronger redundancy across its power transmission and distribution networks to avoid prolonged outages, an energy policy expert has said, following recent disruptions linked to a fire incident at the Akosombo Dam.
Ing. Justice Ohene-Akoto, Executive Director of the Africa Sustainable Energy Center, said the absence of sufficient backup systems had worsened the impact of the incident, which kept multiple generation units offline for days.
“We need to build much more redundancy into our network,” he said on The Forum on Asaase Radio on Saturday (2 May).
“If we had an alternative line, the issue could have been resolved in less than 24 hours instead of almost a week.”
The cause of the Akosombo fire remains unclear, he noted, adding that possibilities range from overheating to human error or safety lapses, despite what he described as robust safety frameworks within the Volta River Authority and Ghana Grid Company.
Ohene-Akoto stressed that enhanced monitoring systems could help identify faults earlier and reduce downtime.
Upgrades
He also raised concerns about ongoing infrastructure upgrades by the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), particularly transformer replacements, warning that the current approach risks triggering repeated outages if redundancy is not integrated into the process.
“Upgrades are necessary, but they must be done without disrupting supply,” he said.
“If redundancy is not built into the distribution network, then every upgrade will come with outages, which is unacceptable.”
The ECG has indicated that parts of its upgrade programme could take up to 24 months, to be implemented in phases across regions.
Caution
Ohene-Akoto warned that without parallel investment in backup systems, Ghanaians should expect intermittent power cuts during that period.
He further cautioned that planned upgrades by GRIDCo could exacerbate the situation if not carefully managed.
While acknowledging that GRIDCo already has some redundancy in place, he said overlaps between transmission and distribution lines require better coordination.
“If GRIDCo proceeds without adequate redundancy, the outages could be even more significant than what we are seeing now,” he said.
Ghana has faced recurring power supply challenges in recent years, with disruptions often linked to technical faults, maintenance works and infrastructure constraints, raising concerns about the resilience of the national grid.
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