The Director of the Africa Sustainable Energy Centre, Justice Ohene-Akoto, has called on the Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo) to be more transparent about the causes of the frequent power outages recorded across the country.
According to him, GRIDCo has not provided enough information to help the public understand the underlying factors behind repeated disruptions to Ghana’s power supply.
His comments follow the latest widespread power outage on Thursday, August 20, 2026, which affected several parts of the country.
GRIDCo explained that the outage was triggered by a major fault on the Akosombo–Volta transmission line, resulting in the automatic shutdown of the Akosombo generating units and some thermal power plants.
However, speaking on Channel One Newsroom, Mr Ohene-Akoto questioned whether the explanation adequately addressed the broader challenges affecting the stability of the national electricity grid.
“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.
Mr Ohene-Akoto suggested that frequency instability within the national grid could be a significant factor behind some of the recent system failures.
He recalled that he had previously raised concerns about frequency fluctuations following an earlier nationwide power outage, but 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. I believe GRIDCo was not telling us something,” he stated.
He said subsequent remarks by the Energy Minister regarding frequency-related challenges had strengthened his concerns about the explanations previously offered by GRIDCo.
“Now, on this issue, the Minister came out and said frequency, which I agree with him,” he said.
The energy expert is therefore urging GRIDCo to carry out detailed root-cause analyses following every major system failure and make the findings public.
He believes such reports should outline the causes of the failures, lessons learnt and specific 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 the construction of a new ultra-modern control centre would, on its own, address the technical weaknesses within the power transmission system.
He cited a fire incident at a substation as an example of an issue that, in his view, should have been prevented through stronger systems and safeguards.
“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.
Mr Ohene-Akoto has consequently called on GRIDCo to publish comprehensive troubleshooting reports, lessons learnt and a clear action plan for addressing recurring system failures.
He said greater transparency would allow industry stakeholders and the public to determine whether the measures being introduced are tackling the root causes of the power outages or merely addressing individual incidents as they occur.
