The Ghana Grid Company (Gridco) has announced the reconstruction of its old power transmission lines across the country in a bid to help improve voltage supply and increase capacity.
Chief Executive Officer of Gridco, Ing Ebenezer Essienyi disclosed this in Accra during a press conference on activities of the company as part of weekly updates under the auspices of the Ministry of Information.
There has been several complaints by citizens of power outages during downpours, the move is expected to eliminate such experiences.
“We are looking at reconstructing our major transmission lines starting from Tema towards
Accra…These are old lines built in the 1960s, they have sucked so much that with any wind they
swing.” he stated.
Ing Essienyi explained that the lights go off whenever the rain falls, stating that the current transmission lines which have been in use for long have become very weak therefore affect power stabilization whenever the rain falls.
According to him, some works have been done which has stabilized power in some parts of
the capital but much work needs to be done and therefore appeals to customers to exercise restraints and bear with the company when their lights go off intermittently in efforts to stabilize supply.
The Gridco Chief Executive Officer also appealed to encroachers on Gridco’s territories especially those who reside or do business under its high transmission lines to leave the right of way for easy access and more importantly, to curb possible impacts of the risk associated with a pylon collapse.
“Those who encroach on our right of way and stay under the lines to do business, it is extremely
dangerous.” he cautioned.
Ing Essienyi also raised concern about mining activities which results in deep holes into the ground exposing the transmission footings of the pylons and huge expenditure cost to relocate such lines.
Gridco has also setup a taskforce to resolve the issue of encroachment through regular monitoring including the employing of the services of drones to ensure instant actions.
