Accra, Feb. 7, GNA - The Volta River Authority (VRA) on Tuesday apologised to the public for the power outage that affected the country at 11.58 am on Sunday, February 5, 2006.

It said following restoration efforts, the system was finally restored to stable conditions and all parts of the country provided with power by 16:23 Hours on the same day.

A statement Ms Harriet Wilson, Director, Public Affairs, VRA said the outage was caused by a fault on the Dunkwa-Bogoso transmission line while planned maintenance work was in progress on the Winneba-Achimota line.

"On that day, generation at Akosombo and Kpong had been reduced for scheduled and critically needed maintenance of two units at the Kpong Generating Station."

It said, " While maintenance work was in progress on the Winneba - Achimota line, the Dunkwa - Bogoso line tripped. This led to a split of the power system into two, with a situation of over generation in the West and overload in the East, and a resulting system collapse." The statement said VRA had taken steps to accelerate the systematic maintenance and rehabilitation of the ageing transmission network, most segments of which were over 40 years old.

It said, "as part of the short-term measures, the VRA will continue to implement a planned maintenance programme." Some of the scheduled maintenance activities may require selective load shedding during the duration of planned work to ensure that the integrity of the power system is maintained and possible collapses averted.

The statement said public announcements would be made, where selective load shedding was required to enable consumers to protect their equipment adequately. It said the VRA regretted the inconvenience caused by the power outage and assured the public that the installed capacity of the various generating plants was adequate to meet the domestic and industrial needs of the country.