The Institute for Energy Security (IES) has challenged President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s assertions that the issue of unpredictable power supply (dumsor) in certain sections of the country has been rectified.
During his May Day speech, the President declared that “dumsor” had been thoroughly handled with, emphasising that it was no longer a concern as a result of successful settlements of transformer and gas supply difficulties.
Despite the President’s pledge, several sections of the country continue to face frequent power outages.
Emmanuel Derrick Xatse, a Research and Policy Analyst at the IES, claimed that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo was being mislead about the severity of the issue.
Speaking in an interview, he stated that the available evidence did not corroborate the President’s statements, and hence the matter was far from fixed.
“If anybody says that we have solved dumsor, what it means is that you have a generational peak this is equal to or more than your peak demand. But what we have as it stands now is a deficit. We have not been able to meet our peak demand,” he explained.
“On April 30, the data from GRIDCo, showed that our general peak was less than 3,700 megawatts because our demand at peak times was 3,760,” Mr Xatse added.
Mr Xatse stated that the country was facing an energy deficit of approximately 300 megawatts.
“On May 1, when the President spoke, the generation peak was less than 3,500 megawatts. So it means we were having a deficit of about 200 to 300 megawatts and we are still shedding load between 200 to 300 megawatts,” he said.
