Power has been restored to most parts of the Greater Accra, Central and Eastern regions where there were power outages resulting from an outbreak of fire which destroyed a transformer at the Ghana Grid Company Limited (GRIDCo) bulk supply station at Dzorwulu in Accra on Saturday. However, GRIDCo has indicated that it would be able to replace the damaged transformer with a new one by the end of February, this year. The fire completely damaged the 66 Mega Volt Ampere (MVA), one of five transformers which supply power to the affected areas. The incident happened at about 5 p.m. last Saturday during a downpour. According to the Head of Public Relations of GRIDCo, Mr Albert Quainoo, lightning might have struck the transformer, causing it to catch fire. "Indeed our engineers were there within minutes, and the first thing to do was to isolate four other transformers from the one that caught fire," he said. He told the Daily Graphic that the company had spare transformers in Tema, and that one of such transformers would be brought in to replace the burnt one. Mr Quainoo'said the company engineers would work feverishly to replace the burnt transformer. He said the damage of the transformer would not affect the supply of power, since there was a backup support from other substations. For instance, he said, Adjiriganno had a 132-MVA transformer of which 31-MVA was being used, and that the other load would be transfered to customers. Again at Mallam in Accra, he said, there was an upgraded substation which could also supply power to customers. He added that there was enough capacity in the system to supply to customers. In the first two weeks of this year, 265 fire outbreaks have been recorded in different parts of the country. Shortly after the fire incident at Dzorwulu, personnel from the ECG and the GRIDCo had to move in to separate the four other transformers from the transformer that caught fire. The police were also called in to ensure law and order following the movement of people to the area. Personnel from the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS) battled the fire for over an hour before putting it out. A visit to the substation Sunday revealed a badly damaged transformer which was said to have two pairs of lightning arrestors. Each pair contains three arrestors. One pair each is for the low and high side of the transformers. Investigations are ongoing as to how the lightning was able to strike the transformers even though it had arrestors. Residents said they were greatly affected by the outage that followed as a result of the damage to the transformer, since they did not expect it. The ECG is currently undertaking an emergency load-shedding exercise as a result of relative instability in electricity supply.