The Technical Controller at the Millennium Development Authority (MiDA), William Amuna, has announced that residents living in Kasoa and its environs will experience 15 days of temporary load-shedding and power outages.
The exercise forms part of planned activities to allow technicians to integrate a new power substation into the national grid. It will kick-start from May 27.
He explained that work on the new power substation is expected to take 12 days. However, some three more days were added to monitor and fix any hitches that may arise.
“There are two transmitting lines from Winneba to Mallam and Cape Coast to Mallam. We are going to take out the towers and construct new ones after which the two lines will be connected to the substation. That is what will cause the outage and because it is 169V, there is no way we can connect to the substation, without turning off power. Through the substation, two lines will be connected to Mallam,” he said.
Mr Amuna said this when the Minister of Energy, Mathew Opoku Prempeh, visited the site of the ongoing project for the construction of a Bulk Supply Point (BSP) at Kasoa, together with officials from GRIDCo, ECG and Millennium Development Authority (MiDA) yesterday.
Reliable power
Taking his turn to brief the media and the government officials, the Chief Executive Officer of MiDA, Martin Eson-Benjamin, noted that the move is timely and will help improve power supply in that area.
It is being constructed to address low voltage and frequent power outage challenges caused by increasing domestic and industrial demand in Kasoa and its environs, including Senya Bereku, Bawjiase and Nyanyanu.
“We are putting new equipment that will improve and sustain power. It is for us to get reliable power. That is why we have to undertake this investment which is long overdue. This is a very timely intervention and I do believe that, when we finish, Ghanaians will understand that the monies received is being put to good use,” he said.
“Kasoa is really opening up and so we want to have stable power so that people can do their businesses well to avoid disturbances,” Mr Eson-Benjamin added.
Cooperation and understanding
In his contribution, Dr Opoku Prempeh called for continuous patience and tolerance as all efforts are being channeled into ensuring that the power systems that has not been upgraded for a long time now gets the needed investment which will bring about a more reliable power supply in the country.
“Indeed we are facing intermittent power outages, but it is also, indeed, true that the financial resources and other resources are being provided so that we tackle our problems,” he said.
Kasoa BSP
The Kasoa BSP is a 435 MVA Capacity Gas Insulated Switchgear (GIS) substation, the second largest of its kind in the country.
When completed the project is expected to benefit 241, 508 ECG customers by vastly improving GRIDCo’s power transmission systems. It will complement the work done at the Pokuase BSP. The $50million BSP project is being funded by MiDA under the Ghana Power Compact programme.
The project is undertaken by Siemens, a French company.
The substation comes with anti-fire walls. This is to ensure that when there is a fire or a blast with one of the 145 MVA transformers, it does not affect the others. The transformers can last up to 20 years before it is replaced.
