THE Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) is to implement a revised timetable for the ongoing power rationing which will intensify the load shedding.
Barring any last minute intervention from the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum and stakeholders, the ECG says electricity consumers under the new arrangement will enjoy power for 24 hours and endure a power cut for the next 24 hours.
This has become necessary because the country is currently dealing with a power generaion shortfall of about 540 megawatts as of Thursday October 15, 2014, Public Relations Manager of ECG, William Boateng disclosed.
“It is a huge challenge because, even we don’t even know when you are going to go off and when you are having power,” he revealed.
Several parts of the country are already experiencing unplanned power cuts making it difficult for consumers and industries to properly plan with the published schedule for the load management exercise.
Mr. Boateng says the current schedule was designed to shed 400 megawatts of power. He said the revision accommodates the additional 140 megawatts generation shortage that is being experienced now.
“We have a revised version [load management timetable] with us where customers will go off 24 hours and come on 24 hours,” Mr. Boateng stated.
He added however: “We’ll meet with our suppliers [Volta River Authority and Ghana Grid Company] on the situation.”
According to him, the power distributor is the hardest hit by the development because, its staff cannot read the consumption levels of consumers.
“Now we can’t even go and read consumers’ meters because any time they go the meters are off,” he said.
Meanwhile, Public Relations Manager for the Volta River Authority (VRA), Samuel Fletcher who was also in the studio to discuss the power situation, is optimistic the situation will improve significantly in the next three years.
He said by early 2015, when ongoing projects are brought on stream, the country will have the needed reserve that will take care of system failures and routine maintenance exercises.
“The projects that are lined up in the next two to three years will really get us out of this problem because we will have the reserve margin that we are looking for”.
“We are not spinning, we are telling you the truth,” Mr. Fletcher stressed
Joy FM/African Eye News
