GRIDCo’s requests for load management are becoming an irritation to customers – ECG tells Energy Minister

The Managing Director of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), Samuel Dubik Mahama has said that requests from the Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo) for load management have become an irritation to customers.

He explained that the requests have become so frequent that they are now a source of disturbance to customers.

This is contained in a response to a letter written by GRIDCo to the Minister of Energy, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh, in which the former complained about ECG’s non-compliance with load management requests.

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“It is noted that, requests from GRIDCo for load management are no longer for emergency operations, but are made on a routine day-to-day basis, becoming an irritation and disturbance to customers,” Mr Dubik Mahama wrote in his letter dated April 5.

“ECG wishes to state that we will always cooperate with all relevant stakeholders including GRIDCo in order not to jeopardize the stability of the Transmission system. We however wish to reiterate our request that the Notice to our System Operators for load management should be received before 3:00pm for peak load and 4am for off-peak load management or to be received 24 hours ahead in each case, as what is happening now is no longer an emergency operation but seemingly a routine daily activity,” he stressed.

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According to the power distribution company, it requires a prior notice of between 3 to 4 hours in order to comply with such requests.

“It is important that such requests for load management from GRIDCo are received between 3-4 hours prior to the peak or off-peak periods. This will afford us the opportunity to plan and execute the load management in such a manner that customers are not unduly affected,” the Managing Director said

Mr Mahama in his letter explained, “For example, customers who may have previously suffered outages due to ECG’s internal faults or planned maintenance works should not suffer a double jeopardy with another outage from a load management request from GRIDCo or due to the operation of their Automatic Frequency Load Shedding (AFLS) relays installed at the BSPs. It is the planning and management of such incidents that makes it imperative for ECG to be informed well in advance about any requests for load management by GRIDCo.”

He added that “ECG’s reservation about the late receipt of instructions from GRIDCo on load management was tabled for discussion in a meeting involving ECG, GRIDCo and the Hon. Minister of Energy. At the said meeting, ECG requested that the notice for Load Management must be received latest by 3pm to enable ECG plan adequately.”

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