The Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo) has rolled out measures aimed at reducing transmission losses to the barest minimum.
Currently, GRIDCo is reporting 4% losses in transmission. However, the state power transmission company believes it can improve the situation by beating it down further.
Speaking in an interview with MyNewsGh.com during a recent press encounter, Director in charge of Systems and Operations, Mr Mark Baah revealed that GRIDCo is taking two major steps to ensure that the current losses are reduced further.
“First of all what we’re going to do is to construct more transmission lines. When you construct more lines it means you’re distributing power. So in that sense, your losses will also reduce.
“Secondly, for you to decrease losses you also need to increase your voltage so what we’re doing now is that we’re changing the 161,000Volts transmission lines to 330,000 Voltage. We have already done one from Takoradi to Tema and now we’re doing one from Aboadze to Bolgatanga,” he explained.
According to Mr. Baah, “This projects will push the losses downwards” saying ” I believe that the transmission losses of 4% will be pushed to about 3.7% when we’re done.”
Aside from reducing the transmission losses, Mr Baah said the intention of GRIDCo for the project is ensuring that it has a robust network to provide an uninterrupted supply of power.
Cash Waterfall Mechanism
Touching on the huge debt bedeviling the energy sector, Mr Baah gave indications that their only hope is the introduction of the cash waterfall mechanism by the government somewhere in July last year.
The cash waterfall system is aimed to reduce the effects of the Electricity Company of Ghana’s (ECG) inability to collect the payment for power supplied to consumers.
The failure of ECG to collect power consumed and pay its creditors has led to major difficulties for players in the energy sector, hampering their operations.
With a huge Legacy Debt of $2.4 billion sitting on the books of the banking sector as at 31st December 2016 the national economy has also been affected.
Mr Mark Baah revealed that ECG is owing GRIDCo to the tune of about GH¢900millon stressing that this affecting GRIDCo’s operations.
He said the company needs money to carry out major projects including paying compensations and serving foreign loans it secured for projects in the past.
MyNewsGh
