GHANA AND THE “LIGHT OFF” SYNDROME
Exactly one week ago, there was a major power outage in Ghana on Monday April 20, 2009. This power outage affected the whole of Accra and Tema and it lasted for almost two and a half hours. News reports later indicated that the power outage had affected the whole country. The power actually when off initially around 6.15pm as I drove home through the agonizing traffic, which I including most Ghanaians experience every blessed day and then it was later restored about an hour later. I got home and just when I was about to say to myself, “thank God the power is back” … The lights went out again. It did not come on until about 10.40pm! I kept my fridge and freezer off, throughout the night and even in the morning I wasn’t too comfortable leaving them on before going to work.
How Electricity Is Generated and Distributed
Folks, I therefore decided to do a little research into how power is generated and distributed, so as to get a better understanding of the kind of problems which are associated with such occurrences. This is what I found out.
Electricity generation stations throughout the world are interconnected in a system called power grids. This allows electricity generated in one state or region to be sent to users in another. It also allows distant power generation stations to provide electricity for cities, towns and villages, whose power generators may have failed or been destroyed by some accident or sabotage.
In the U.S. electrical system, there are more than 6,000 power-generating units energized with coal, oil, gas, hydro (falling water), wind or nuclear fission. In our beloved country, we have only 4 major power generating units and they are located at Akosombo, Kpong, Tema, and Aboadze. A hydro unit is currently being built at Bui and this will bring the total to 5 when it is completed in 2012.
Power from these stations is moved around the country on almost a thousand miles of bulk transmission lines that carry high voltage charges of electricity. The power transmission is directed by several control centers. Engineers located at these centres can monitor the distribution of power and reroute electricity from areas of low demand to areas of high demand. Often there are automatic switches that direct the routing of power to where it is needed.
From the high voltage transmission lines, power goes to the regional, district and neighborhood substations. There, the electricity is stepped down from high voltage to a current that can be used in our homes and offices. In Ghana our current is 240V. Any visitor coming to Ghana can bring along a universal three-pin square plug adaptor and this will fit into our power system without any problems. These universal adaptors usually have an AC input range of 100-240V ~ 50/60Hz.
High or unbalanced demands for power that develop suddenly can upset the smooth distribution of electricity in a grid. In some cases, this can cause a blackout in one section of a grid, or even ripple throughout the whole grid, sequentially shutting down one section after another.
Once large sections of a grid are shut down, it may be difficult or impossible to restore power from neigbouring grids. In periods of high demand, especially during the dry season when the weather is very hot and many of us have to turn on air conditioning units to cool off, often these nearby grids fall under stress and may not have sufficient power to spare. This situation then causes the power to automatically switch off to avoid damage to the grid. It happens all the time in our major cities, and especially in Accra which is the capital.
When power is eventually restored, it can cause a sudden surge in demand that the system may not be able to immediately accommodate. When electric motors, transformers and other electrical devices are all energized at once, it can draw many times the normal load and this can trip a secondary shutdown. This I believe is what happened in Ghana on Monday, April 20, 2009.
Engineers at VRA, GRIDCO and ECG will then restore power after such a massive blackout in stages, one section after another, so that there is no sudden, overwhelming demand that will cause another shutdown.
The Challenge
The incidence of power outrages in Ghana has reached quite an alarming proportion where most of us patriots, no longer find it funny anymore. I quite remember in February of 1998, when President Bill Clinton visited Ghana at a period when the country faced one of the worst power crises since independence. The VRA (Volta River Authority) and ECG (Electricity Company of Ghana) had put in place a load shedding exercise which lasted every 24 hours then it was extended to 48 hours! I for one couldn’t watch TV that night because there was no light. I believe that may have been the reason why the US president chose not to spend the night here in Accra. How could he have imagined doing that when almost half the country was in total darkness? Yes, that was the situation then. In 2007, nine years on our beloved country was plunged into darkness again because the Akosombo dam was at the verge of drying up. This time around, the government put in place some measures to forestall the power outage problem but it still did not bring sufficient light to Accra.
Ghana’s largest power generating unit is located at Akosombo and this hydro plant can generate up to 912 megawatts of power. This power generated, was more than sufficient for the entire country when the plant was commissioned by our first president Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah in 1965. This was 43 years ago! Ghana had a population of around 5 to 6 million then, but today we are around 22 million, and the Akosombo plant is still our largest and cheapest source of electricity today. In the mid 70s the head of state, then General Kutu Acheampong commissioned the Kpong hydro plant and this added another 150 or so megawatts to that of Akosombo. In the mid 90s President Jerry Rawlings commissioned the Takoradi thermal power plant at Aboadze, and this added 550 megawatts of power to the national grid. In 2007 President JA Kufuor procured 126 megawatts of power which was installed at Tema as a strategic power reserve source during the power crises which hit the country by then. These were diesel generating units which were imported into the country to provide additional power to the national grid.
I quite remember Dr. Wireko Brobbey describing these power generating units as “toy machines”, which attracted a lot of flak on him. These plants only worked for a short while and were discontinued because of high operating cost. I hope that the current government will find some use for them very soon or else someone may be jailed again for causing financial loss to the state. I also remember when in the mid 90s Mr. Tsatsu Tsikata, then the boss of GNPC (Ghana National Petroleum Company) procured a power barge and named it the Osagyefo barge. It is capable of generating 125 megawatts of power, but he was accused of having misused national funds for this project and causing financial loss to the state. The barge was supposed to run on light crude or natural gas which was to have come from the Tano basin. It was a very brilliant idea but that venture never materialized to this day. The NPP government later moved the Osagyefo power barge to Tema, where gas from Nigeria was supposed to have come to powered it. That project is now in limbo because the gas from Nigeria hasn’t arrived yet even though the pipelines were completed almost two years ago.
President JA Kufuor during his tenure of office cut the sod to commence the building of the Bui hydro dam project and this is expected to add 400 megawatts of power to the national grid when it is finally commissioned by President Atta Mills in 2012. I think our past Presidents have done quite well to add something to what the Osagyefo left behind in 1966 when he was overthrown but they could have done much better.
According to official sources from the energy ministry, Ghana currently has an installed capacity of about 1,812 megawatts of power on stream but unfortunately, it is not enough for all of us. The Atta Mills administration has therefore promised that Ghana will have a total installed capacity of about 5,000 megawatts in the medium term. I wonder what “medium term” means, but if this is to be achieved, then the country would have solved its power problems. In order words, the government has promised an additional 3,200 megawatts of power to the good people of Ghana, so folks let’s keep our fingers crossed and pray.
Despite all these efforts being put in place by our past and present governments to make power readily available for both home and industrial use, Ghana’s ever increasing and insatiable electricity needs have kept souring over the years. There isn’t enough for all of us, so every now and then the power goes off as if it has a life of its own. What the ECG people do very professionally under these circumstances is to say the situation had gone beyond their control and then they will apologize profusely to the good people of Ghana on radio and TV.
Meanwhile, many home appliances as well as industrial equipment would have gotten destroyed as a result of these frequent power outages, but the unfortunate thing is that no one has the guts to dare to sue the ECG for damages. All we can do is to call into a radio talk show and vent our spleen, while those responsible go scot free. I am yet to hear of a case where the ECG people have been successfully sued for damages. On the other hand you dare default on paying your monthly electric bill and the ECG people will swoop onto your premises, like swarms of bees, to disconnect your electricity supply. They conduct these disconnection exercises with such rapt military precision that you will be very much amazed at the zeal with which they are conducted. One would wish that same zeal will be channeled towards rectifying electricity supply problems when they do occur.
I have also noticed that most of the power lines are not put underground so when ever there is a storm or some strong wind during the rains the electricity has to be switched off to save the grid. It is now common practice to get your emergency lamps ready when ever the rain threatens to fall because the lights will most definitely go off! This situation has also affected a lot of small businesses who depend solely on electricity to function. There was a woman who operates a mini meat and fish shop on TV last year showing all her rotten fish and meat to the camera crew. Her merchandise had gotten rotten in her deep freezer because the power went off for almost one week, due to a transformer fault. Who should take responsibility for all her losses? Many others have suffered similar fates with no compensation.
Beer bars, restaurants, Internet cafes and business centers also rely solely on electricity to operate and if there is a power outage, you can be sure these businesses will go to sleep early that day. Factories and a majority of our local artisans also operate small to large scale machinery and these rely on power to operate, so if the power is not reliable, you can imagine how it will affect the business.
Businesses which can afford alternate power generation units admit that it is expensive and this ultimately adds to their operating costs. Eventually these extra expenses are pushed to the poor consumer. Electricity is the life line of any developing nation or emerging economy, and if it is not readily available, then you may as well just fold up your arms and kiss your future developmental efforts good bye.
Ghana has abundant raw materials which will be required to feed future industries which will in turn spearhead our national growth, and if this should become a reality, then we need to pay special attention to the energy sector. Countries like Malaysia, South Korea, China, and India were not what we see them to be today, thirty years ago. They have progressed largely putting their focus on serious industrialization over the past thirty years, while we have traveled along the road of decline as far as our energy resources is concerned, since the Osagyefo was overthrown 43 years ago! We have not been able to build or put in place anything bigger or better that what he left behind.
These are just the tip of the iceberg ripple effects of the unreliable power supply in Ghana today.
The Solution?
More private initiatives and investments will be required to help solve Ghana’s power problems so that we can move from a poorly developed economy to a middle income economy status by the year 2015 or 2020 latest. Abundant electricity is the only solution to moving us forward into a better Ghana. We should explore and invest more into areas of solar energy harnessing and wind to produce electricity for our homes and small business. Government and the private sector should collaborate to make this possible so that these facilities could be provided for our hospitals, schools and our homes so as to reduce the over burdening on the national grid.
One notable private initiative, which is in the offing to provide electricity to add to the national grid, is the Sunon Asogli Power project, a plant based at Kpone near Tema. This plant according to official sources will have a total capacity to supply 560 megawatts when completed next year. So far, the first phase with a capacity to produce 200 megawatts has been completed and power will start pouring out of the plant by next month. The only major problem I can foresee affecting the smooth running of Ghana’s first private power plant is that, it will have to rely mainly on gas pumped from Nigeria or the Tano basin to fire its turbines, and if that gas is not readily available, you and I can guess what the future lies for the plant. But if the gas from Nigeria really flows to that plant without any hurdles, then the problem of constant power outages in Accra will be solved to a great extent.
The Daily Graphic of Wednesday, April 22, 2009 reported that the country’s entire energy sector will require about $10 billion to revamp, (petroleum, oil, gas, electricity, storage facilities etc). Out of this amount, the ECG alone required an amount of about 1 billion US Dollars to upgrade their distribution networks to improve reliability of power supply from now until the year 2012.
Now you can see the enormity of the challenge which lies ahead of us, but where there is a will, there is hope. Crisp $1 billion notes will be needed for the next 3 years to conduct this exercise and I pray to God that the government headed by our prayer and miracle believing President, will actually secure such an amount to complete the project. Only then can we see an end to the constant power outages that have plagued this dear nation of ours.
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