The full restoration of power generation at the Akosombo Dam could take up to five days following Thursday’s substation fire, the Ministry of Energy and Green Transition has admitted.

Spokesperson for the Ministry, Richmond Rockson, said engineers initially briefed the government that complete restoration of the facility would require about five days, before the Energy Minister pushed for a faster, phased approach.

“The briefing given by the engineers when we went there was that they were looking at five days — five days for the full restoration,” Rockson told journalists.

“The Honourable Minister asked them that, of course, they should do 24 hours and ensure that the time for restoration is limited.”

According to him, the 24-hour target applies only to the first generating unit at Akosombo, not the entire plant, which has six units in total.

Rockson added that engineers are working under pressure to stabilise the system, but expressed cautious optimism that the full five-day timeline may eventually be shortened as repairs progress.

“Once they do the first one within 24 hours, they’ll be able to do the restoration earlier,” he said.

The clarification comes after a fire on Thursday, April 23, gutted part of the Akosombo substation switchyard, disrupting transmission and affecting a key portion of Ghana’s power infrastructure.

The Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo) has confirmed that the incident occurred at about 2:01 p.m., triggering emergency shutdowns and forcing engineers to isolate parts of the national grid.

The fire is estimated to have knocked out between 720 megawatts and 1,000 megawatts of transmission capacity linked to the dam, one of Ghana’s most critical electricity generation assets.

Rockson had earlier indicated that engineers were targeting a rapid recovery of at least one unit within 24 hours, with a phased restoration plan to follow across the remaining units.

A multi-agency investigation by the Energy Ministry and GRIDCo is underway to establish the cause of the fire, while engineers continue restoration works at the dam.