The Ghana Grid Company Limited (GRIDCo) has advised electricity distributors to shed load to ensure system stability in Ghana’s power distribution.

A statement released by GRIDCo and copied to the Power Distribution Service (PDS) said a total of 330Kv has been taken out of service due to an ongoing road construction works at ACP Junction Pokuase which has affected the Tema-Aboadze transmission line.

“This has limited the capacity of transmission network,” the statement added

“GRIDCo has accordingly advised The suggestion to Power Distribution Service (PDS) to redistribute loads at various Bulk supply points to ensure system stability. This may result in some outages to some consumers,” the statement warned.

Already several communities in the capital and outside it have been complaining of unannounced outages. Social media has been awash with complaints and lamentations from consumers.

Energy Minister John Peter Amewu was quick to refute assertion the country was back to the dreaded “dumsor” regime which had power rationed across the country.

According to him, there was enough generation of power but the problem has been distribution challenges.

A day after his assurance, GRIDCo issued a statement advising PDS to shed load.

Load shedding

The country is no stranger at all to load shedding. Between 2012-2016 the country was plunged into an intense power rationing regime which affected both domestic and commercial users of electricity.

Before that, in 1998 the country saw another load shedding regime as well as in 2006. There have been different reasons for the load shedding. Chief among the reasons was the high cost of crude oil and gas to power the thermal generators.

It is hoped this latest load shedding policy will not run into months, if not years.

Per the statement, the situation is expected to normalise Tuesday March 19, 2019.