There’ll be stable power during election period — ECG assures

The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has rolled out a contingency plan to ensure stable supply of power during the December 7, 2017 general election and beyond, the Managing Director of the company, Mr Robert Dwamena, has said.

Under?the plan, the company will deploy its engineers to man all critical installations, including the bulk supply points, primary substation transformers and lines that will feed constituency collation centres across the country.

“Although we are guaranteeing reliable power supply, there can sometimes be unforeseen or unplanned outages and what is most important during such outages is our rapid response,” Mr Dwamena said.

In an interview in Accra yesterday, he said the deployment of engineers to the strategic points was important, “so that they can promptly respond to emergencies to reduce the intervention time to the barest minimum”.

Additionally, he explained that the ECG, in collaboration with the Ministry of Power, would provide solar facilities, including solar lamps and pole-mounted solar illumination, at all the polling stations on election day.

Furthermore, the ECG would make available generators that would serve as back-up in case of any unforeseen outages, he said.

Installed capacity

Currently, the country has a total installed capacity of 3,644 megawatts (MW) which can meet the national demand which is usually at a peak level of about 2,000MW.

The installed capacity is from hydro power from the Volta River Authority (VRA), Independent Power Producers (IPPs) and other power generation plants.

Ghana goes to the polls to elect a President and 275 Members of Parliament on December 7, 2016.

The elections, which start at 7 a.m. and end at 5 p.m., will require electricity to recharge the biometric machines that will be used on election day, while voting centres will need light during the counting of the ballot papers.

The issue of stable electric power supply during the elections has, therefore, become crucial.

Enough power

Mr Dwamena gave an assurance that ECG engineers would work “extra hard to ensure that electricity is available to all consumers”, saying: “There is enough power to meet the demands of customers.”

At the National Collation Centre in Accra, he said, the ECG would make available a heavy-duty mobile generating set as back-up.

“We believe that with all these measures being put in place, we are going to have very reliable and stable power supply during this very crucial national event,” he said.

Public to be on lookout

Despite the measures put in place, including ECG engineers patrolling the company’s installations on the day of the election, he urged the public to be on the lookout for any suspicious persons loitering around ECG facilities and report such characters to the nearest police stations or call the ECG Call Centre on 0302611611 to avert any untoward situation.

All ECG staff members, he said, could be identified by their cards which they were required to carry as a form of identification.

Mr Dwamena explained that the recent power outages had nothing to do with generation shortfalls but rather distribution-related challenges.

He said the company would soon complete its planned maintenance works and the replacement of its weak links to ensure that the systems would be stable.