Written by: Keziah-Norah Breindel Lécosson

A fault on the Akosombo-Volta transmission line triggered a widespread power outage across Ghana early Thursday, 20 August, disrupting electricity supply to several regions and renewing concerns about the reliability of the country’s power grid.

The Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo) said the fault occurred at about 4:30 am, causing the automatic shutdown of the Akosombo generating units and several thermal power plants as a protective measure to safeguard the national electricity system.

The outage affected parts of Greater Accra, Eastern, Northern, Central and Ashanti regions, with homes, businesses and other facilities left without power.

GRIDCo said its engineers, working with other power-sector agencies, had isolated the affected transmission line and begun restoring electricity to affected customers.

“Power has already been restored to some affected areas, while efforts continue to restore electricity to all remaining customers,” the company said in a statement.

GRIDCo said it had also launched a technical investigation to establish the precise cause of the fault, describing the probe as necessary to prevent similar incidents and improve the reliability of the national transmission network.

The company apologised for the disruption and said technical teams had been mobilised to complete the restoration.

The latest outage comes amid longstanding concerns about the resilience of Ghana’s electricity infrastructure, with the national grid experiencing several major disturbances in recent years.

Ghana recorded a series of widespread grid failures in 2023, including a major outage in March that affected large parts of the southern part of the country and another system disturbance in October.

Previous disruptions have been associated with faults on transmission lines, unplanned outages at generation plants, voltage instability and fuel supply constraints affecting thermal power plants.

The country’s electricity system relies on an interconnected national grid operated by GRIDCo, with power generated largely from hydroelectric facilities including the Akosombo and Bui dams, alongside thermal plants.

Although Ghana has moved away from the prolonged power rationing popularly known as “dumsor”, which was particularly severe between 2012 and 2015, periodic system disturbances continue to expose vulnerabilities in the country’s generation and transmission infrastructure.

The Akosombo-Volta transmission corridor is a key part of the national grid, carrying electricity from the Volta River Authority’s generation facilities towards major load centres including Accra and Kumasi.

GRIDCo’s investigation is expected to establish what caused Thursday’s fault and whether any measures are required to prevent a recurrence.