The Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo) has been adjudged the best power transmission company in West Africa at the 12th edition of the West African Power Industry Convention (WAPIC) awards ceremony held in Abuja, Nigeria recently.

GRIDCo beat competition from six other transmission companies across the ECOWAS sub-region to emerge the overall winner in the Excellence in Power Transmission and Distribution category.

The independent judging committee made up of industry experts representing all the industry categories, in selecting winners for the various categories considered the competing companies capacity to enhance power capacity and output in West Africa, excellence in meeting the growing power needs of the region, sustainable investment in a power project or initiative, developing technologies and processes that innovate and promote renewable generation in West Africa, as key variables for selecting winners.

Citation

A citation which accompanied the award said GRIDCo at its inception in 2008, owned and operated forty-three substations and about 4000 km of high voltage (KV) transmission lines across the country, with a bulk of them operating at 161 KV.

The company, the citation said has steadily invested in the system to increase its transmission lines to over 5,100 km and fifty four substations by 2014 as well as the introduction of a 330KV transmission line.

“This is intended to enhance the power transfer capacity of the National Interconnected Transmission System (NITS) and thus improve reliability of the NITS”, the citation said.

It further commended GRIDCo for the consistent investments made in the area of the NITS which were evident to the resilient transmission system with adequate back-up to ensure being seen and would most likely contribute to the uninterrupted power supply to customers in the in the near future.

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of GRIDCo, Ing. William Amuna said in an interview with Graphic Online that although the award came at the time Ghana’s power industry was faced many challenges; GRIDCo would use it as a platform to identify opportunities and solutions.

The Company, he said is investing in newer technologies that would enhance the countries transmission networks and further reduce stress, which had occasionally led to system breakdown.

WAPIC

The WAPIC is an annual knowledge sharing platform which often brought together players in the power sector across the sub-region on industry updates and business development.