According to the Public Utility Regulatory Commission (PURC), the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has inaccurately attributed power outages during peak hours to transformer faults.
In March, PURC requested data from ECG concerning all transformers and power outages nationwide.
After analyzing the data provided by ECG, PURC has determined that only 3 out of the 647 outage incidents between 7pm and 11pm from January to March 18, 2024, were actually due to transformer overload.
“Analysis of the data submitted showed that out of 715 transformer details submitted, 31 were loaded less than 70%, 595 were loaded between 70-100% and 89 were loaded above 100%,” portions of the update read.
“The data submitted by ECG was further compared to the total outage data provided by ECG for the period January to March 18, 2024. The Commission established that 647 outage incidents occurred between 7 pm and 11 pm. Of these 647 outage incidents, only 3 were planned outages relating to transformers. The analyses showed that the majority of the outages between 7 pm to 11 pm were as a result of load management operations by GRIDCo and faults unrelated to overloaded transformers,” it added.
“ECG’s attribution of the outages between 7 pm and 11 pm to transformer overload was therefore not factually accurate,” PURC concluded.
PURC also reports that there were 4,142 outages to consumers within ECG’s operational areas between January and March 2024.
Out of this total, 165, which accounts for 3.98% of the outages, were planned by ECG.
Further analysis by PURC revealed that out of the 165 planned outages, 40 were accompanied by public notices. However, there were no notices for the remaining 125 outages, with an additional 38 of the 40 notices not meeting the required three-day statutory notice as outlined in Regulation 39 of L.I. 2413.
This indicates that in 163 instances of planned outages, ECG did not adhere to legal requirements.
Consequently, PURC has imposed fines totaling Five Million, Eight Hundred and Sixty-Eight Thousand Ghana Cedis on ECG board members for their failure to provide the mandated three-day statutory notices to customers during 163 planned outages this year.
Attached is the full statement