Lack of dynamism from GRIDCo contributed to power cuts – Mutawakilu

A former Ranking Member on Parliament’s select committee on Mines and Energy, Adam Mutawakilu, says the Ghana Grid Company’s (GRIDCo) inability to adjust its system in response to power supply challenges in the Western Region led to the mass power cuts yesterday.

In an interview with the media, Mr. Mutawakilu highlighted the need for a dynamic system to effectively respond to such challenges, as well as the need for a constant supply of fuel to emergency plants to enable them supply power in times of such challenges.

“Whenever there is this fault in generation, there is the need for other generating plants to come on board. When this thing happened, there was the need to quickly cut off some areas so that the load balance will be there,” he explained.

The former Damongo Member of Parliament also blamed the situation on financial challenges in the energy sector.

“Do we have fuel down so that most of the plants that are there can easily be brought on board? I don’t think currently we have fuel to do that and that brings up the financial challenges in the energy sector,” he said.

A challenge in GRIDCo’s power system led to a total system shutdown and total power outage nationwide on Sunday, March 7, 2021.

This affected the Bulk Supply Points (BPSs) in the country.

The power challenges happened a little after 2 pm on Sunday.

GRIDCo has since explained that the total power system shutdown experienced on Sunday was due to a technical fault on one of the major transmission lines between Prestea and Obuasi.

“This situation led to overloads on other adjacent transmission lines, leading to a sequence of trips and an eventual power system shutdown in the country,” GRIDCo said in a statement.