The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has swiftly addressed allegations raised by the Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo) concerning ECG’s purported failure to comply with load management instructions.
GRIDCo expressed concerns in a letter dated March 28, 2024, suggesting that ECG’s actions could disrupt the country’s power generation
ECG, while reaffirming its commitment to cooperation with GRIDCo, disputed the allegations, highlighting discrepancies in the timing and adequacy of load management directives received. ECG provided statistics showing instances where directives were issued shortly before peak or off-peak periods, limiting ECG’s ability to plan and inform customers effectively.
“It is a fact that GRIDCo routinely directs ECG’s System Operators to drop load at some of our Bulk Supply Points (BSPs), but the issue has been the inadequacy between the time these requests are received and the time these requests must be effected to sustain the integrity of the power system and also for ECG to inform its customers.
“It is worthy to note that, between January and March 2024, sixty-four (64No.) requests were received from GRIDCo for load management. Out of this, forty (40No.) were for peak periods (18:00 – 24:00 hrs) and twenty-four (24No.) for off-peak (06:00 – 18:00 hrs) load management.
“Out of the forty (40no.) peak load requests, thirty-five (35No.) (88%) of them were received within an hour to the peak period. There were only five (5No) (12%) instances where ECG received the request within 2-3 hours of the peak period.
“Out of the Twenty-Four (24No.) off-peak load requests, three (3No) (13%) of them were received within 30 minutes to the off-peak period while the remaining Twenty-One (21 No.) (87%) instances were received far into the off-peak period,” the power distributor said.
The power distributor stressed its commitment to working with GRIDCo and other stakeholders to maintain transmission system stability.
However, ECG emphasised the need for GRIDCo to provide prior notification of load management requests to enable optimal planning and implementation without undue impact on consumers.
Source: Energy Ghana