The Chief Executive Officer of the Bui Power Authority has dismissed claims by the Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo) that it had shut down its power plant due to low water level in the dams.

According to Fred Oware, GRIDCo’s attempt to blame the erratic power supply that is experienced in part of the country on his outfit was unfortunate.

He told JoyNews’ Elton John Brobbey that, if the electricity transmission company has challenges in power supply, it must be made known and a solution proffered to address the shortfalls.

“Let me be bold enough and say that, I think GRIDCo has misled the Minister in making such a sad statement. Because as we sit here talking right now, Bui is in operation. We have three units which work at 133. It is not true.

“The water is gone down without any doubt whatsoever but this is not an unforeseen act. We knew this and last year when we submitted our supply plan, we indicated quite clearly that this year we will not be able to generate as much as we generated last year” he said.

At a recent press conference, CEO of GRIDCo, Jonathan Amoako-Baah said the Bui Hydroelectric Power Plant which supplies the central part of Ghana had been halted as a result of the low water levels.

But the CEO of Bui Power Authority said that, “they can’t put it on Bui because we knew last year that the supply plan would be what it is. And so they should have looked at our supply plan and made alternative arrangements to fill in the gap but to say that there is dumsor because of Bui is quite misleading.”

Although the Bui Power Plant is not working at full capacity, Mr Oware said the phenomenon was predicted and communicated to GRIDCo in its supply plan for 2021.

The Bui Dam is unable to generate the 400 megawatts when at its peak to support the national grid in the evening when demand for electricity is highest. It is currently able to produce 90 megawatts.

But Mr Oware explained that the Plant is still able to generate some megawatts during peak hours.

For some months now, parts of the country have been plunged into darkness often without prior notice since the beginning of 2021.

Some citizens fear that the much dreaded erratic supply of power popularly referred to as ‘dumsor’ has resurfaced.

But the Energy Minister refuted claims ‘dumsor’ is back. He attributed the power crisis to system upgrade.

Meanwhile, the Bui Power Authority said it has added 22 megawatts from its solar project onto the national grid.

The CEO of the Power Authority told JoyNews that the ultimate goal is to scale up the solar plant to 250 megawatts.

“We are on course and we are hopeful of achieving the target set, indeed during the dry seasons when the water level is down we can then rely heavily on the solar panel to give us the power that we need and when in the season the hydro will come in” he explained.

Mr Fred Oware further stated that the power generated from the solar plants will however be available only during the day when the sun is up.