The Director of the Africa Sustainable Energy Centre, Justice Ohene-Akoto, has accused the Ghana Grid Company Limited (GRIDCo) of failing to provide sufficient information on the causes of recurring power outages in the country.
Mr Ohene-Akoto is calling for greater transparency from GRIDCo following another widespread power outage that affected several parts of Ghana on Thursday, August 20, 2026.
GRIDCo attributed the latest outage to a major fault on the Akosombo–Volta transmission line, which triggered the automatic shutdown of the Akosombo generating units and some thermal plants.
Mr Ohene-Akoto questioned whether the explanation fully accounted for the repeated failures within the national power system.
“We think GRIDCo is not telling us something. We think GRIDCo should be more transparent on exactly what some of these things are happening,” he said.
He suggested that the latest incident could be linked to frequency problems within the national grid, which he believes have contributed to previous system failures.
Mr Ohene-Akoto recalled raising similar concerns during an earlier total system collapse, but said GRIDCo attributed that incident to lightning.
“I came out saying it’s likely an issue of frequency, I mean, of a frequency that was out of range, that we had a total failure. GRIDCo came out and said it’s a result of lightning, which I have my reservations about,” he said.
He said recent comments by the Energy Minister regarding frequency-related challenges had strengthened his concerns about GRIDCo’s previous explanations.
“Now, on this issue, the Minister came out and said frequency, which I agree with him,” he added.
The energy analyst urged GRIDCo to conduct and publish comprehensive root-cause analyses after every major system failure, including lessons learned and measures being taken to prevent similar incidents.
“If they came out to give us a comprehensive root cause analysis and a comprehensive roadmap, we’d have held them accountable with this one,” he said.
Mr Ohene-Akoto also questioned whether plans to construct a new ultra-modern control centre would address the underlying technical challenges affecting the national power system.
“An example is the fire, I mean, the substation that caught fire. That should have been something that should never have happened. And I’ve seen the Minister saying, ‘We are going to build an ultra-modern control centre.’ If the underlying issue were not resolved, we are going to burn the control centre as well,” he said.
He called on GRIDCo to publish detailed troubleshooting reports, lessons learned and a clear roadmap for preventing future system failures.
