The ripple effects of last Thursday’s fire at the Ghana Grid Company Limited (GRIDCo) substation at Akosombo continued to batter the Ashanti Region on Sunday, April 26, with the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) announcing load management measures stretching from 12:00pm to 6:00pm across dozens of communities.
The ECG confirmed that the fire at the Akosombo substation disrupted bulk power transmission, leading to outages across both residential communities and key industrial zones in the Ashanti Region, the Central Region, and the Tema enclave.
Communities bearing the brunt of Sunday’s outages in the Ashanti Region include Abuakwa, the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Bantama, Atonsu, Kwadaso Estate, Boadi, Kotei, Ahinsan, Gyinyase, Oforikrom, Asawase, Ayeduase, Bomso, Atimatim, Pakyi, Trede, Ampatia, Apire, Kwanwoma, and surrounding areas stretching across the region.
The fire, which broke out at approximately 2:01pm on Thursday April 23, knocked between 720 megawatts and nearly 1,000 megawatts off the national grid, forcing a full suspension of electricity exports while all generated power was redirected to meet domestic demand.
Energy Minister John Abdulai Jinapor has constituted a seven-member investigative committee, chaired by William Amuna, Board Chairman of ECG and former Chief Executive of GRIDCo, to probe the fire. A nationwide audit of all energy installations is set to commence on Monday, April 27.
In the Kwadaso Municipality, frustration among residents has reached boiling point, with communities reporting weeks of persistent and unpredictable power supply well before Sunday’s extended outage. Small businesses, food vendors, and households dependent on refrigeration have been among the hardest hit.
ECG assured affected customers that its engineers are standing by to restore supply as soon as conditions at the substation are stabilised, while apologising for the disruption to households and businesses.
As previously reported by NewsGhana, the Akosombo fire has exposed deep vulnerabilities in Ghana’s power transmission infrastructure and the outsized role the Akosombo corridor plays in national electricity distribution. The energy crisis has renewed public calls for faster restoration, infrastructure redundancy, and a credible long-term solution to Ghana’s recurring power challenges.
