Mr John Peter Amewu, Minister of Energy has assured Ghanaians that the recent power outages across parts of the country are by no means the return of “dumsor”.

According to him the government is working assiduously to address the situation and also ensure that the power system of Ghana functions effectively.

“Let me state that the events that led to challenges that the power system of Ghana experienced are by no means the return of “dumsor”. We are working assiduously to address the situation”.

Mr Amewu gave the assurance when he briefed parliament about the recent power disturbances that occurred on the Ghana Power System on Tuesday, March 12 and Wednesday, March 13, 2019.

The Minority in Parliament has attributed the recent power outages across the country to liquidity challenges in the power sector and asked government to be candid with Ghanaians and release a load shedding timetable to help consumers plan their activities.

According to the Minority, the recent power outages are a reflection of the financial troubles facing the energy sector due to government’s inability to clear its debt.

They claim there is a huge shortfall of 1,000 megawatts because the power sector is financially bankrupt and that the country cannot pay for the power it consumes.

Mr Amewu also explained that the power system experienced a number of disturbances which resulted in the interruption of power supply to customers.

He said the main cause of the blackout was the ongoing construction of the interchange at Pokuase which necessitated the diversion of GRIDCOs 330kv transmission lines that runs from Tema to Aboadze.

This requires taking an outage of the entire line to the central business district substation.

Mr Amewu also clarified that as a result of the outage on the 330kv line, no power was transmitted from Aboadze to Accra.

He said, instead, power has to be transmitted from Akosombo through Mallam, Winneba and Cape Coast to the western part of the country through the 161kv transmission line.

These 161kv lines became overloaded, thereby causing it to trip as a protective measure to avoid any major damage to the equipment.

He said the transmission lines across the country are interconnected to the extent that disruption in one transmission line has a ripping effect on others.

He said the power plants are designed to automatically shut down in response to hiccups in the course of power transmission.

Mr Amewu further explained that it became necessary to temporary shit and limit power flow through the coastal corridor to facilitate stability of the entire transmission network while work is completed on the diversion of the line at Pokuase.

“This issue is thus a pure operational and technical challenge at the transmission stage, it has nothing to do with technical faults at the generation or distribution stage of the power value chain” he added.