Accra, March 16, 2022. Residents of 53 towns and communities located in the Electricity Company of Ghana’s (ECG) Achimota, Dansoman, Akuapim-Mampong, Legon, Kwabenya and Kaneshie Districts are experiencing improved power quality and a significant reduction in outages. This is as a result of the completion of works to upgrade the electricity distributor’s low voltage network in several areas of the project districts.
Almost 600,000 residents, comprising businesses and homes in the six districts, are benefiting from the project referred to as the Low Voltage (LV) Bifurcation & Network Improvement Project. Prior to the inception of the project, residents commonly experienced low and fluctuating voltages which manifested in dim lights and caused damage to electrical appliances. They also suffered frequent power outages caused by overloading in transformers and conductors that served these communities. For ECG, having long and undersized conductors in these areas led to high technical losses, frequent and long downtime and high operations and maintenance costs.
“Some residents say their lights are now brighter and more stable, and that they are now able to use all their electrical appliances anytime of the day. This implies that they are noticing the improvements and impact of the project”, said Roland Osei Nyarko, the LV Bifurcation Project Manager at MiDA. He said that the Project is expected to eventually contribute to improved incomes for the beneficiary residents, enhance job opportunities and the wellbeing of the people, and contribute towards Ghana’s efforts at reducing poverty and increasing economic growth.
The LV Bifurcation & Network Improvement Project aims to improve the quality of power supply by transferring load from existing overloaded electricity conductors and transformers to newly installed ones. The scope of the project covers the installation of 393 new transformers of various capacities and the replacement of 88 over-aged ones. It also includes planting over 17,000 wooden electric poles across the six Districts, upgrading about 992 km of undersized conductors or lines, and installing 75 km of new low voltage lines.
Construction activities in the Achimota, Dansoman, Kaneshie, Akuapem-Mampong, Kwabenya Districts have been fully completed. Activities in the Legon District, currently at 85 percent complete, are on scheduled to be fully completed in May 2022. The contractors undertaking the project are Messrs. Power Factor Ltd, Best & Crompton Engineering Ghana Ltd, and MBH Power Ltd.
The Millennium Development Authority (MiDA) is implementing the US$31m Project on behalf of the Government of Ghana, as part of the US$316milion Ghana Power Compact Program funded by Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) of the United States of America.
The LV Bifurcation & Network Improvement Project is one of the Projects making up the Technical Loss Reduction Activity, which comes under the larger ECG Financial and Operational Turnaround (EFOT) Project.
