The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has commissioned a GH¢55 million primary sub-station at Mpraeso in the Kwahu South District of the Eastern Region.
The project is expecetd to improve electricity supply to the Kwahu Ridge and the Afram Plains areas.
The Kwahu Ridge and Afram Plains used to experience erratic and poor-quality power supply due to the use of only two feeders – the 11-kilovolt feeder from Nkawkaw Primary Station and the 33 kilovolts at Donkorkrom.
With the coming in of the two by 10 megavolt per amps 33 by 11 kilovolt primary substation at Mpraeso, the Company would link the various 11-kilovolt feeders into a ring system on the Kwahu Ridge to ensure system flexibility while its strategic location would make it possible for the Eastern Electrical Network to link Ashanti Electrical Network to Agogo.
The Eastern Region Manager of the ECG, Ing Michael Baah, was confident the new facility would improve system losses, ensure reliable supply and give consumers and business entities some relief on the Kwahu Ridge.
“ECG can now link all four outgoing feeders from this station to serve our customers. Now our customers in this part of the Region can heave a sigh of relief, tourism potential will thrive since the plight of long outages and poor quality of power supply has ended.”
The Managing Director of the ECG, Kwame Agyeman-Badu, explained a total of GH¢66 million has been invested into four projects in a space of three years in the Eastern Region.
A primary substation at Suhum, a complete relaying of sub-marine cable in the Afram Plains River, a conversion of a 33 kilovolt single circuit feeder to a double feeder at Tafo and the new Mpraeso Primary Substation project.
He noted a constant improvement of network system would take off the pressure on overloaded feeders whiles increasing demand are accommodated.
“The completion of these projects as well as various injections into our network system brought out relief on over loaded feeders, improvement on voltage profiles and increase in system capacity geared towards accommodating demand.”
He made a case of stability and reliability of power.
“This is evident when you compare overall power stability and reliability between 2017 and December 2019, average supply interruption duration per customer reduced from 145 hours to 56 hours representing a 61 percent improvement. Average supply interruption frequency per customer reduced from 86 times to 41 times representing a 52 percent reduction.”
The EGC MD was of the conviction the introduction of drones to monitor audit system would curb the major challenge of vegetation interference in network.
The Mpreaso Member of Parliament, Seth Kwame Acheampong, was elated the improvement of electricity would drive more industrialization and tourism potential in the Kwahu enclave
By Yvonne Neequaye|3news.com|Ghana