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There is no planned load shedding - VRA, ECG, GRIDCo

" border="0" align="left" class="photo" hspace="10" style="float:left;"/> The Volta River Authority (VRA), the Ghana Grid Company (GRIDco) and the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) have all denied the possibility of a load shedding exercise.

This follows a newspaper publication indicating that due to power supply shortfalls from GRIDCo, it has prompted the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) to embark on emergency power management exercise.

But speaking on the Citi Breakfast Show on Friday, Head of Corporate Communications at the VRA, Sam Fletcher, dismissed the claims saying, “I spoke to GRIDCo control center and the information I have is that as far as their outlook is concerned; demand against supply, there is no planned load shedding.”

He was however quick to add that there could be a possible load shedding exercise due to the expansion projects going on at the Takoradi International Company (TICO) to increase generation which has necessitated the shutting down of one gas unit at TICO.

“There is one gas unit that is down at TICO because they are fixing what is called the heat recovery steam generator which will help…so there is a bit of sacrifice there to be able to increase capacity.”

Mr. Fletcher also mentioned that there are ongoing maintenance works at the Aboadze thermal plant “as you know, we are working on bringing the T3 up.”

The Public Relations Officer of GRIDCo, Albert Quainoo attributed the shortfalls in power supply to challenges being faced by the power generators.

He said: ''We don’t have any challenge on the GRIDCo network; the problems we've had over the past two weeks are basically inadequate generation from the power producers. That is what is translating into what you call load shedding from the ECG end."

The ECG on its part stated that the current power outages are only routine.

The Public Relations Officer of ECG, William Boateng said: "This is not loadshedding, we have to once in a while undertake emergency load management. When we say national load shedding, it means that its nationwide and its 24hrs; this is emergency load management during the peak hours, it is not regular, its not everyday."

By: Efua Idan Osam/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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