The Ghana Grid Company, the country’s power transmitter, says it has been forced to shed load partially in the past few weeks because of gas supply challenges from Nigeria.

Chief Executive of GRIDCo, William Amanu, told Joy Business that, over the past few weeks gas supply from Nigeria “has not been good at all”.

“Initially they [Nigerians] were undertaking certain major works over there. But for now, nobody really knows the reasons for which they are not giving us enough gas supply”, he said.

He said hopes for restoration of normal power transmission are currently pitched on the Atuabo Gas Project coming on stream.

The gas project, although plagued with postponements on when it will come on stream, was recently given a new date to start commercial production. 

Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Gas Company, George Sipa Yankey, said he is sure, production of gas at the facility will be come on in September.

The GRIDCo CEO, however, said “immediately it is important that we get gas from our gas field. Mind you, there are certain [power] plants in Ghana that run only on gas. So the moment we don’t have gas, no matter the crude oil we have in the system, we cannot run them”.

Power consumers have been hit by four to five-hour unexpected power outages over the past week, although there have not been any official communication from the Electricity Company of Ghana or any of the sector players.

In 2013, consumers were forced to deal with an unpleasant loading shedding exercise due to unavailability of gas to run power plants, coupled with a drop in water level at the Akosombo Hydroelectric Dam.

GRIDCo Annual General meeting

GRIDCO, in 2013 transmitted a total of  12.93 Twh across  the network, while energy consumption stood at 11.69 Twh in the country.

These came to light at GRIDCo's Annual General Meeting on Monday

GRIDco  also recorded a revenue of GH₵303.236 million in 2013 compared to GH₵271 million in 2012, representing a 12% increase.