The Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo) says the blackout which hit parts of seven regions of the country on Friday was due to an explosion which occurred during the installation of a new circuit breaker at its Volta Substation in Tema. While almost the whole of Accra and Tema were enveloped in total darkness, parts of the Ashanti, Western, Volta, Central, Eastern and Brong Ahafo regions were affected by the power outage which struck around 6.40 p.m. on Friday. According to officials of GRIDCo, what caused the explosion was not immediately known but they suspected it could have been due to a manufacturer’s defect. They, however, gave an assurance that the situation was under control and that everything possible would be done to ensure that electricity was made available to the public. Explaining events leading to the blackout to the Daily Graphic in Accra yesterday, Mr Eric Asare, the Director of System Operations, said GRIDCo had embarked on a project to replace some of its obsolete equipment, which was as old as 48 years. He said the contractor had just finished changing one of them and activated the new one when it exploded, resulting in the blackout to a number of lines in Tema and tripping off all the thermal units in Takoradi and Tema. “We managed to bring on stream power from the Akosombo and Kpong Hydro units to supply a number of places. After inspection, we removed the equipment from the network and we started working on the lines that went out to get them back on. By 11:35 p.m., we had managed to put almost everybody back on line. “We are going to investigate what caused power supply to trip. We have not experienced any problem since midnight on Friday. The system has been restored to normal,” he stated. Friday’s blackout is not the first time the country has experienced power failure of that magnitude. In December last year, a nationwide power outage which lasted close to four hours was attributed to the explosion of one of the breakers in the switch room of the Volta River Authority (VRA). A similar one also lasted almost 30 minutes on May 21, 2003 just when the then acting CEO of the VRA, Mr Jabesh Amissah-Arthur, had taken over from Dr Charles Wereko-Brobbey. To improve the malfunctions in the energy sector, GRIDCo last year announced that it was raising about $230 million from local and international financial markets to invest in the country’s electrical energy infrastructure. Under the initiative, which feeds into its long-term capital investment plan, the company was to receive 80 million euros from French companies, the Coface Group and Societe Generale, in partnership with the SG-SSB Bank. Other collaborators are Korea’s EXIM Bank, which is contributing $70 million, the CAL Bank and the Standard Chartered Bank, which are providing $13 million and $25 million, respectively. In respect of improving the obsolete infrastructure, Mr Asare said a number of similar equipment was replaced last year. “This is work being done by a contractor and the equipment is under warranty. At the end of the project, we will make sure that whatever equipment is restored is up to the required standard,” he said.