We Have Cooperated with All Stakeholders ECG Boss Tells Energy Minister

The Managing Director of the Electricity organization of Ghana (ECG), Samuel Dubik Mahama, has assured the Energy Minister, Matthew Opoku Prempeh that officers from ECG cooperate with all stakeholders to ensure smooth running of the power sector.

According Dubik Mahama, the ECG considers GRIDCo as a relevant stakeholder, hence will cooperate with them in order not to endanger the existing power transmission framework.

In responding to the noncompliance letter sent by GRIDCo to the Energy Minister, the MD for ECG said, “ECG wishes to state that we will always cooperate with all relevant stakeholders including GRIDCo in order not to jeopardize the stability of the Transmission system.”

In the letter to the minister, GRIDCo complained, among others, that ECG does not comply with load management requests it issues.

“It is noted that, requests from GRIDCo for load management are no longer for emergency operations, but are made on a routine day-to-day basis, becoming an irritation and disturbance to customers,” Mr Dubik Mahama wrote in his letter dated April 5.

According to the power distribution organization, it requires a prior notice of between 3 to 4 hours in order to comply with such requests.

“It is significant that such requests for load management from GRIDCo are received between 3-4 hours prior to the peak or off-peak periods. This will afford us the chance to plan and execute the load management in such a manner that customers are not unduly affected,” the Managing Director said.

Mr Mahama in his letter explained, "For example, customers who may have previously suffered outages due to ECG’s internal faults or planned maintenance works should not suffer a double jeopardy with another outage from a load management request from GRIDCo or due to the operation of their Automatic Frequency Load Shedding (AFLS) relays installed at the BSPs. It is the planning and management of such incidents that makes it imperative for ECG to be informed well in advance about any requests for load management by GRIDCo.”

The ECG boss stressed, “It 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 mdash; 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 (2INo.) (87%) instances were received far into the off-peak period. 3. For January and February 2024, ECG received seventeen (17No.) requests from GRIDCo to drop loads ranging from 80MW to 510MW. In addition, GRIDCo also disconnected feeders and BSPs. ECG’s compliance for this period was 100%.”

He added that, “ECG’s reservation about the late receipt of instructions from GRIDCo on load management was tabled for discussion in a meeting involving ECG, GRIDCo and the Hon. Minister of Energy. At the said meeting, ECG requested that the notice for Load Management must be received latest by 3pm to enable ECG plan adequately.”

“We wish to reiterate our request that the Notice to our System Operators for load management should be received before 3:00pm for peak load and 4am for off-peak load management or to be received 24 hours ahead in each case, as what is happening now is no longer an emergency operation but seemingly a routine daily activity,” he added.Kobina Darlington/