ECG lied; recent dumsor not caused by faulty transformers – PURC

The Public Utility Regulatory Commission (PURC) has exposed the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) over falsehood peddled to the Ghanaian public.

Last month, ECG informed Ghanaians that the irregular, unpredictable electric power outage (dumsor) being experienced in the country resulted from faulty transformers.

The company assured that it was working on these transformers to ensure a stable power supply.

However, following an assessment by PURC, it has disclosed that the claim by the ECG that the country experienced dumsor due to faulty transformers was inaccurate.

“Analysis of the data submitted showed that out of 715 transformer details submitted, 31 were loaded less than 70%, 595 were loaded between 70-100% and 89 were loaded above 100%. The data submitted by ECG was further compared to the total outage data provided by ECG for the period January to March 18, 2024. The Commission established that 647 outage incidents occurred between 7 pm and 11 pm. Of these 647 outage incidents, only 3 were planned outages relating to transformers.

“The analyses showed that the majority of the outages between 7 pm to 11 pm were as a result of load management operations by GRIDCo and faults unrelated to overloaded transformers. ECG’s attribution of the outages between 7 pm and 11 pm to transformer overload was therefore not factually accurate,” a release by PURC has explained.

Meanwhile, the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission has fined the Electricity Company of Ghana GHS36,000 for failing to submit all bank and investment accounts it currently operates to the Commission.