The Ghana Grid Company Limited (GRIDCo) has announced interruptions in power supply from now till July 2016, when it expects to complete replacement of “over-aged equipment at its major sub-stations across the country”.

These interruptions are to create a safe working environment for workers.

The power cuts will be outside the regular load-shedding programme, a statement from GRIDCo on Tuesday clarified.

“We assure the general public that adequate measures have been put in place to minimize the outages, which may result from these works.

“GRIDCo regrets any inconvenience that may be caused to consumers during this period.”

The major replacement works will include the reconfiguration of some of these substations, installation of additional transformers, replacement of switch gears, construction or expansion of Control Rooms, as well as the provision of capacitor banks and standby generators at sub-stations including those at Achimota, Kumasi, Takoradi, Cape Coast, Dunkwa, Tamale, Sunyani, Techiman, Aflao and Winneba.

The exercise is “to enhance the substations’ capacity and operational reliability for the benefit of electrical power consumers."

Ghana has suffered load-shedding since 2012, when there was a burst to some pipelines of the West African Gas Pipeline Company.

Though government has given assurances that the situation will cease at the end of the year, the new announcement by GRIDCo suggests that power cuts will continue to be part of Ghanaians at least till July 2016.