A malfunction on one of the biggest transformers at the Ghana Grid Company Limited (GRIDCo) switchyard in the Bono Regional capital has caused power disruptions in parts of Sunyani and the neighbouring towns.
Transformer Two (T2), the larger of the two transformers at the Sunyani switchyard with a capacity of 33 megavolt amperes (MVA), is where the incident happened, according to GRIDCo.
Large portions of the municipality’s electricity supply were disrupted by the event on Tuesday night.
Many firms, especially those that rely significantly on power for manufacturing, have been forced to shut down due to the outage, which has caused major interruptions to company operations and financial losses for owners.
The Northern Electricity Distribution Company (NEDCo) Sunyani Area Manager, Mr. Odoi Addo, told the media during a press conference in Sunyani on Wednesday that the company was unable to provide a timeline for restoring full power supply at this time because the extent of the damage was still being assessed.
He emphasised that it would be challenging to predict when the transformer would be fixed until a number of technical tests had been carried out to ascertain the extent of the problem.
Engineers from GRIDCo were at the switchyard repairing the damaged transformer when the Daily Graphic visited.
Meanwhile, GRIDCo and NEDCo have started rerouting loads to the Sunyani township’s lone surviving 20 MVA transformer.
As a result, while the two firms work to create a load-shedding schedule, residents of Sunyani and the surrounding areas are anticipated to experience sporadic power supply and load-shedding for a while.
Residents will only have electricity for roughly eight hours a day, according to Mr. Addo, who said that load management was required to guarantee a certain amount of supply throughout the impacted districts.
Customers would be able to experience “a bit and pieces of the power,” he claimed.
He did, however, guarantee that vital facilities, such as the Sunyani Teaching Hospital and the Third Infantry Battalion at Liberation Barracks, have been powered continuously since the event.
“So as we speak, we only supply about 42% capacity in Sunyani township,” Mr. Addo said, pointing out that the malfunctioning transformer provided the majority of Sunyani’s electricity.
He counselled customers to turn off equipment when not in use and to use electricity responsibly.
“We should manage the little power that we have. So that if we see any reserve capacity, we can hook on other people who are off,” he stated.
According to Mr. Addo’s account, the event happened at around 4:00 p.m. when operators heard an odd noise at the switchyard along with smoke and oil leaking near one of the transformers.
He claimed that in order to save lives and property, the operators turned off the power supply right away.
He says that a more thorough technical evaluation subsequently verified that one of the yard’s power transformers had developed a malfunction, making it impossible to provide electricity to areas of Sunyani and nearby settlements.
Mr. Etse Mawuli, the acting Area Manager of GRIDCo for Sunyani and Techiman, stated that evaluations started right away following the event and went on all night.
According to him, the business intended to do a thorough assessment of the damage and make repairs as quickly as feasible.
Residents were reassured by Mr. Mawuli that engineers will keep working nonstop to stabilise the electricity supply to the impacted areas and repair the transformer.
Source: newsthemegh.com