ACEP calls for investigation into recurring 330kV line trips to prevent future nationwide blackouts

By Boakye Stephen Kumasi, Ghana | Reporting for Ghanaian News Canada

The Executive Director of the Africa Centre for Energy Policy, Benjamin Boakye, has called for a comprehensive investigation into recurring trips on Ghana’s 330kV transmission lines to prevent future nationwide power outages.

Mr Boakye said fixing infrastructure at the Akosombo switchyard could help prevent a complete collapse of the power system, but would not necessarily address the underlying causes of repeated transmission-line trips.

He made the remarks on Newsfile on JoyNews on Saturday, August 22, following a nationwide power disruption recorded on Thursday.

The Ghana Grid Company Limited (GRIDCo) attributed the latest disruption to a trip involving power transmission lines.

The incident was reportedly the second major system disturbance recorded in August, raising renewed concerns about the reliability and resilience of Ghana’s electricity transmission network.

Mr Boakye explained that a trip on a 330kV transmission line could trigger a cascading effect across the power system.

According to him, when a major transmission line trips, the electrical load can be transferred to smaller lines, potentially overloading them and causing further failures across the network.

He therefore called for investigations to go beyond preventing a total system collapse and determine why the high-voltage lines are repeatedly experiencing disturbances.

Mr Boakye said possible causes could include minor technical faults, major equipment problems, grounding or earthing-system failures.

He further advocated targeted investment in the transmission network to ensure that disturbances affecting particular parts of the system do not automatically cascade into a wider national blackout.

The ACEP Executive Director said Ghana must identify the specific causes of the recurring trips and introduce measures capable of isolating affected sections of the network before disturbances spread.

Commentary

The recurring blackouts should not be treated merely as isolated technical inconveniences.

Electricity is fundamental to virtually every sector of Ghana’s economy. Businesses, hospitals, schools, financial institutions, telecommunications companies, households and industrial facilities all depend on a stable electricity supply.

The most important issue raised by Benjamin Boakye is therefore the distinction between treating the symptom and eliminating the cause.

Preventing a complete system collapse is important. However, if the 330kV lines continue to trip repeatedly, Ghana may continue experiencing partial outages, instability and disruptions even after measures are introduced to prevent total system collapse.

The transmission network is effectively the highway through which electricity moves from generation facilities to distribution networks. If major transmission infrastructure repeatedly fails, increasing generation capacity alone cannot guarantee reliable electricity.

This raises a broader infrastructure question: Are Ghana’s investments keeping pace with the maintenance, redundancy and protection requirements of the national grid?

There must also be transparency after every major system disturbance.

Ghanaians should not merely be told that a line tripped. Authorities should explain why it tripped, what equipment failed, whether the failure was preventable, what the investigation established and what corrective measures have been implemented.

A resilient electricity system should also contain sufficient redundancy and protection mechanisms to prevent one failure from triggering a chain reaction.

The objective should therefore not simply be to restore power after a blackout. The objective should be to build a system in which a single technical failure does not become a national crisis.

For Ghana, the question is no longer simply “When will the lights come back?”

It is increasingly becoming:

“Why do the lights keep going off, and what are we doing to ensure that the same failure does not happen again?”