John Abdulai Jinapor (L) receiving the report
The committee investigating the fire incident at the Akosombo Substation says the fire was caused by insulation failure as a result of the ageing facility rather than any human factor.
Chairman of the committee, Ing. Dr. William Amuna, who presented the findings to the Minister for Energy and Green Transition, John Abdulai Jinapor, said the fire originated in the changeover section of the low-voltage (LV) panel, where decades-old cables had deteriorated significantly.
“It actually started from insulation failure from some of the cables in the LV panel, and not anybody going to turn something or twist something or whatever. The fire actually started from that changeover area of the LV panel, the first structure came up around 1964.
“Some of the cables have gone brittle, there was a fault where the current just flowed because of insulation failure. Once they were in metal encasements, there was what we call some kind of fault where the current just flowed because of the insulation of the materials over there,” he explained.
Ing. Amuna stated that the initial power supply from the powerhouse automatically tripped at 311 amps after detecting the fault, but a second transformer immediately took over the supply, which continued to feed electricity into the damaged section.
He said that the second transformer was configured to trip only at 450 amps, which allowed the fault to continue and generated excessive heat.
Ing. Amuna indicated that within a short time, the insulation, which is like plastic, caught fire which quickly spread because the affected LV panel was connected to another panel and surrounded by numerous control cables serving the large substation.
“Akosombo Substation is a very big one. It has 11 outgoing circuits. They had a lot of cables in there, and the LV cables were within those cables. They started burning, and within a short time the whole place was ablaze,” Ing. Amuna added.
The chairman noted that its investigation found no evidence of human interference and, therefore, recommended immediate and long-term measures to improve the safety of the facility.
Ing. Amuna said an interim arrangement is already being implemented to transfer the protection and control functions from the damaged station to the Akosombo Power Plant, while recommending the construction of a new permanent control building to replace the old facility.
Minister for Energy and Green Transition, John Jinapor, who received the report, assured the committee of implementing the recommendations, while commending the engineers for restoring electricity after the incident.
“This should be a wake-up call for us so that we can strengthen the system, make it more responsive, improve our emergency response system, maintenance culture and, more importantly, invest in the grid in order to have a resilient energy sector,” the minister stated.
By Ebenezer K. Amponsah