Accra, March 10, GNA - The Volta River Authority (VRA) on Friday opened bids for two projects for power supply improvement in two sub-stations in the Volta Region.

The projects involve the upgrading of transformer capacities at Ho and Asikpe and form part of plans to upgrade transformer capacities in 11 other bulk supply stations.

The project, which had become necessary as a result of the growing demand on the Ho sub-station, would enable the Authority to install a second transformer at the sub-station to meet the single transformer contingency and improve reliability of power supply to Ho and its environs.

Three out of four companies that confirmed interest in the project submitted their tenders.

The companies - Norelec from France; Conco from South Africa and SAE Power lines from Italy - submitted bids for the two projects in two lots to be solely sponsored by the VRA.

Under lot one, Norelec's tender price was 998,937.30 dollars and a cedi component of 439.9 million cedis; Conco's price was 1.4 million dollars and 340.7 million cedis with SAE Power Lines quoting 934,491 dollars and 952.7 million cedis.

For the lot two, Norelec quoted 1.022 million dollars and 833.9 million cedis; Conco's tender price was 1.080 million dollars and 299.384 million cedis with SAE Power Lines fixing its tender price at 671,923 dollars and 1,369,855,222 cedis.

Mr Joseph Tawiah, Deputy Chief Director in charge of the Engineering Department, giving a background of the project, said in 1983, two 161 kV lines from Akosombo to Lome were tapped-off at Asiekpe for the construction of a 161/69kV substation to supply power to the Volta Region.

He said the 69 kV line was routed northwards from Asiekpe through Ho and Kpeve to Kpando for which transformers were procured. One of the transformers was installed and the other kept as a spare under the project with a sub-station being built at Ho. The 69kV system was extended to the southern part of the Volta Region, which resulted in a considerable increase of the load served by the transformer at the Aseikpe sub-station.

"The demand was such that the load on the Aseikpe transformer was significant and accordingly a project was initiated to have the second transformer installed."

He said the VRA in 2002 commissioned a 161/34.5 kV sub-station at Aflao to supply power to a new cement factory at the town and in January 2006, the sub-station was expanded to transfer part of the Southern Volta Region load to Aflao.

This improved the system's voltages in the Southern Volta Region but resulted in the reduction of load on the Asiekpe transformer. Mr Tawiah said the project would convert the Ho sub-station from a single transformer station to a two-transformer station and enable maintenance work to be carried out on any of the transformers with minimum power supply interruptions to customers.

"The ultimate objective of the project is to improve upon the system voltages, sustain continuous and reliable supply in the whole of Volta Region and Ada in the Greater Accra Region" Mr Tawiah said.