Accra, April 29, GNA - The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has acquired a Mobile Sub-station Transformer with a capacity of 33kV to 11kV, and 13 mobile transformers to boost power supply reliability to customers. The new facility will serve as a temporary replacement for any sub-station or a transformer that experiences a fault to enable engineers to work to rectify the problem.

The ECG acquired the facility two months ago from a Lebanese technology firm and is currently training staff on its application before inaugurating it. Acquisition of the facility makes Ghana the second country in the West African sub-region after Nigeria to possess the equipment. Mr Julius Kwame Kpekpena, Director of Engineering of the ECG made this known to journalists after a tour of the facility at its Tema Warehouse on Thursday. He said the equipment would ensure continuous supply of power to reduce the outage hours customers suffered when there was a break-down of a sub-station or a transformer. The tour began on Wednesday when Mr Kpekpena and officials of the ECG and journalists visited other project sites which included, Dome station where two 26 Mega Volts Ampere Transformers are being installed to convert 11,000 volts of power to serve communities within Kwabenya District and Adjiriganor Bulk Supply Point, which would serve the motorway, East Legon and Adjiriganor. Mr Kpekpena said the 13 mobile transformers would be distributed to all the nine-zoned ECG regions across the country to help ensure stability of power supply to customers.

He said ECG has embarked on a number of projects nationwide to improve power supply reliability to customers.

He mentioned some of the projects, which involve supply and installation of 33kV and 11kV cables and transformers, construction of new Bulk Supply Points and 11kV feeders, reinforcement, upgrading of existing 33kV double circuit tower lines and the conversion of existing 11kV feeders to 33kV and the supply of power transformers.

Mr Kpekpena said the projects aimed to effectively transform the 161,000 volts of electricity power supplied to ECG by Volta River Authority to between 207 volts and 250 volts for onward distribution to households and other users to prevent the frequent power fluctuations experienced by customers.

He said so far, 450 million dollars has been spent on the projects, which are at various stages of completion. He said the projects would reposition ECG to supply power to new communities that were being hooked onto the national grid under the government's Rural Electrification Project. Mr Kpekpena said ECG required one billion dollars and a continuous investment of 150 million dollars annually to ensure improved and reliable power supply to customers.

He announced that the ECG would in July benefit from a 70-million-dollar facility from the World Bank to improve electricity power supply. Mr Kpekpena said management had also stepped up efforts to reduce theft of power in terms of illegal connections and called on the citizenry to report people engaged in such acts for appropriate action to be taken against them. He said ECG would reward those who reported illegal connections with seven per cent of the amount which would be recovered. 29 April 10