Ghana’s power crisis is threatening to break the relationship between two of the leading companies in the energy sector. GRIDCo and ECG are currently trading hot exchanges as Ghanaians watch on for solutions to the power crisis that has rocked the nation for months now.
While these may not be anything more than corporate face-saving efforts by these two government entities, a break down in the relationship could leave customers hurt.
The tirade started when GRIDCo wrote to the Energy Minister on April 3, 2024, expressing discontent with ECG’s posture towards load-shedding management. It accused the power distribution entity of failing to comply to instructions but quick to push the blame on GRIDCo when emergency disconnections occur.
GRIDCo said it was drawing the attention of the Minister because ECG’s non-compliance is not only threatening the integrity of the power system but also a violation of regulations. “ECG’s disregard for load management instructions is a clear violation of the regulations,” the letter said.
But ECG’s response though a posture of one trying to not escalate things, it went deep to reveal load management requests from GRIDCo since January 2024. It said these requests often come too late for ECG to be able to implement them.
“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.”
According to Samuel Dubik Mahama’s led organization, it received 64 load management requests between January and March 2024. It said 40 of those requests were for peak hours while 24 requests wanted load-shedding during off-peak hours. However, majority of the peak hour requests came barely an hour to the time GRIDCo wanted those requests to be effected, while some came after the peak hour schedule had already kicked off.
“It worthy to note that, between January and March 2024, sixty-four (64No.) requests were received from GRIDCo for load management. Out of this, forty (40No.) were for peak periods (18:00 – 24:00 hrs) and twenty-four (24No.) for off-peak (06:00 – 18:00 hrs) load management.
Out of the forty (40no.) peak load requests, thirty-five (35No.) (88%) of them were received within an hour to the peak period. There were only five (5No) (12%) instances where ECG received the request within 2-3 hours of the peak period.
Also, “Out of the Twenty-Four (24No.) off-peak load requests, three (3No) (13%) of them were received within 30 minutes to the off-peak period while the remaining Twenty-One (21 No.) (87%) instances were received far into the off-peak period.”