Akosombo Dam level drops

The Akosombo Hydro Plant of the Volta River Authority (VRA) is operating at a fraction of its installed capacity for more than a year now as a result of the dwindling water levels in the Volta Lake.

The plant with six combined turbines which contribute 1,020 megawatts of power to the national grid, manages to produce a maximum of just 680 megawatts from four turbines at a go in the last one year leaving 340 megawatts deficit.

The Akosombo Dam, which takes its source from the over-400 kilometre Volta Lake, is one of the state agencies to bear the full effect of the drying water body.

The Volta Lake Transport company, a state-run water transport firm, only last week counted their loss when the Transport Minister, Mr. Fifi Kwetey, undertook a familiarisation tour of the company.

At the time of filing this report, the water level in the dam stood at 237.27 ft. below the 240 ft. minimum level a situation the VRA has been confronted with all this while.

Mrs. Getrude N. Koomson, Manager, Corporate Affairs at the VRA, speaking in an interview with The Ghanaian Times in Accra, yesterday said the situation was forcing the plant to underperform.

According to her, until the water level appreciates to enable all the turbines run concurrently, the only option left now was to “manage the reservoir” and keep at most four of the turbines running depending on the demand of electricity in the country.

For now, “if the demand is high we manage to bring on board four turbines but during the day when demand was not at peak, we bring on board two to three turbines which is the minimum so that the lake elevation can continue to build up so that peak time when demand is highest, we can add the fourth turbine but because of the level we are not operating even at five turbines,” she added.

With the rains coming down, Mrs. Koomson is hopeful the situation could change in the coming weeks, if not days but that is dependent on rains from the middle belt and the northern parts of the country.

As it remains now, rainfall is the only solution to the problem and from the northern part and the middle belt because, rains from the southern sector, she revealed, do not affect the levels of the water.