GridCo To Cough $1m To Replace Burnt Transformer

It would cost the Ghana Grid Company Limited (GRIDCo) an estimated $1.3 million to replace the transformer which go burnt at the Achimota Sub-Station in Accra last Saturday the Director of Systems of the company, Mr Bernard Modey, has said. According to Mr Modey, the rehabilitation, which has already begun, would be completed early March, this year. Meanwhile, the GRIDCo and the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) are working to evacuate additional power from the Accra East sub-station at Adjirigano to the Achimota sub-station. Until that stop-gap work is completed in about a week's time and before the major rehabilitation work is accomplished in March, power supply to affected areas in the Greater Accra, Central and Eastern regions will remain erratic. One of the five transformers at the Achimota sub-station was completely burnt during a fire outbreak believed to have been caused by lightning during last Saturday's rainfall. The incident affected power supply to many areas in the national capital, Accra, and parts of the Central and Eastern regions. Mr Modey told the Daily Graphic in Accra yesterday that the extensive damage to the transformer required that it was replaced with a new one, which cost $1.2 million. He said an additional cost of $100.000 would be incurred to install the new equipment. Power has since been restored to affected areas, but its supply, according to Mr Modey, would remain irregular. He explained that the Accra East sub-station had a 132-MVA transformer out of which 31-MVA was being used, and that the remaining load would be transferred to customers. Earlier, GRIDCo, in a letter signed by its Public Relations Officer, Mr Albert Quainoo, apologised to customers for the inconvenience the situation had caused them. In the first two weeks of this year, 265 fire outbreaks were recorded in different parts of the country.