Short-term Projects help improve electricity supply -ECG

Accra, Sept 21, GNA -The Electricity Company of Ghana's (ECG)upgrading and expansion of existing lines and building of new ones have helped to improve electricity supply to residents in most parts of Greater Accra and the Eastern Regions, an official said at the weekend. Mr. Bruno Detornoo, Acting Project Engineer, Accra East Region said putting up a new 11,000 watts line to link two existing ones serving Ogbojo and surrounding communities in Accra had made the electricity supply situation better in those areas.

Besides, it has cut down on losses and enhanced the efficiency of the system. Mr. Detornoo was speaking during a tour of officials of the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) to see how ECG was undertaking its short, medium and long Term strategies for improving the Electricity supply situation for ECG customers. ECG in a presentation to the PURC in June, outlined short to long-term measures to address consumer concerns about its services over the next 3 years.

The visit took the team to project sites at Legon, Agbogba township junction, Pantang and Mamfe. The projects are being funded by ECG through internally generated funds.

Mr. Detornoo said increasing the capacity and replacing the old copper conductors with aluminium ones, which could carry more load had resulted in improved voltage and quality supplies. ECG have upgraded old and weak 16sqmm conductor to 120sqmm at some portions of the Mampong feeder, 70sqmm Conductor to 120sqmm on portion of Pantang 11kV feeder and 35sqmm to 120sqmm conductor on portion of Agbogba feeder.

"With the enhanced capacity of the lines, outages have been contained unless they are done for planned maintenance," he said, adding that the unique feature of these investments is that it was being funded by the Company.

Mr. Detornoo said to meet the increasing demand and improve the quality of supply; there was the need to continuously invest in system upgrade and Network expansion and asked customers to pay their monthly bills on time to enable the company invest. ECG has undertaken projects worth about 54.4M USD in the sub-transmission and distribution networks. Despite these investments, the existing network is being stretched, by increasing demand of existing and new customers.

This has led to some deterioration of the quality of supply and frequent interruptions in distribution networks. Mr. Emmanuel Fiati, Director of Energy at PURC, said the Commission as part of its mandate, would ensure that the Utilities adhere to industrial benchmarks in providing efficient and reliable services to customers. He said improvements in the system would allow the ECG to make more money since it would contain system losses. 21 Sept. 09