There’s an ongoing blame-game between two of the leading giants in Ghana’s power sector; the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) and the Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo). GRIDCo wrote a letter in which it reported ECG to the Energy Minister accusing the power distributor of non-compliance with load-shedding instructions.
“We note with grave concern the repeated instances where Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) Operations personnel fail to follow load management instructions issued by the SCC. This non-compliance poses a significant threat to the stability of the power grid, potentially leading to Avoidable power outages for customers and system collapse.”
According to GRIDCo, the SCC communicates load-shedding instructions to ECG but these requests are not either not followed or sometimes fulfilled partially. It said when that happen emergency disconnections may sometimes occur and the ECG blames it on GRIDCo.
However, a letter by the Samuel Dubik Mahama-led company said GRIDCo’s posture is surprising because ECG has been cooperative. It said GRIDCo is their partner in the energy sector and they will continue to collaborate.
“The letter which was received on 3rd April, 2024 portrays that there is no cohesion and cooperation in operational matters between ECG and GRIDCo in maintaining national power system integrity. ECG wants to reiterate that GRIDCo is our partner in the electricity value chain, and that we work closely together. This makes the presence and circulation of this letter confounding to ECG.”
Additionally, ECG revealed that it receives load management requests from GRIDCo but they often come too late for them to be implemented in full or even partially.
“It is a fact that GRIDCO routinely directs ECG’s System Operators to drop load at some of our Bulk Supply Points (BSPs), but the issue has been the inadequacy between the time these requests are received and the time these requests must be effected to sustain the integrity of the power system and also for ECG to inform its customers.”