The Director of System of Operation for Ghana Grid Company Limited (GRIDCo), Mark Baah, says power outages has reduced considerably in some parts of Accra.

Speaking at a press briefing on Sunday, he attributed the decrease in power to the construction of a bulk supply point of power within the business district of Accra with the help of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

“In view of that, outages to the central business district have reduced actually. This is because we don’t need to send power from Achimota or Adjiringanor; now it is right at the business hub, so it has reduced outages considerably,” he said.

The Accra Central Bulk Supply Point (BSP) project was funded with a JICA grant of $ 40 million and completed in October 2018.

He stated that the construction of substation has also “enabled the Electricity Ghana Company (ECG) to send power at a lower loses”.

The Director of System of Operation for GRIDCo also updated other completed Projects, such as the Pokuase Bulk Supply Point (BSP), which was completed in May 2021 by a MIDA grant of $47 million.

The Pokuase BSP constructed in the northern part of Accra was to provide additional power to ECG’s customers around Pokuase, Kwabenya, Nsawam, and its environs.

Also, the Pokuase BSP will “improve upon the quality of power to northern Accra by reducing the overloading conditions at the other BSP in the Metrpolis, namely Achimota, Mallam, Accra Central and Accra East Substations.”

He said that works are currently ongoing at the Kasoa Bulk Supply Point and are expected to be completed in January 2022. In addition, a transmission line in Kumasi is expected to be fully upgraded by March 2023 with the financial support of $6.97 million from the European Union (EU).

Mark Baah explained that “all these are required in order to ensure that outages to customers are minimised [because] customers want quality services.”

“We want to improve on our transmission line capacities and we’re doing that because we are planning the system in such a way so that should any transmission line go off, as a result of maintenance or there is a fault on it, the customer should not even sense it,” he added.