The Africa Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP) has expressed grave concern over Ghana’s worsening power crisis, warning that persistent outages are disrupting livelihoods, weakening economic activity, and eroding public confidence in the energy sector.
In a statement signed by Kodzo Yaotse, Policy Lead for Petroleum and Conventional Energy at ACEP, on April 27, 2026, the think tank noted that households, businesses, and institutions have endured over a month of escalating power cuts. It said the situation has been compounded by a recent fire incident at the Ghana Grid Company’s Akosombo substation.
According to ACEP, the incident has taken out approximately 960 megawatts of relatively cheaper and reliable generation capacity, triggering widespread load shedding across the country.
The policy think tank criticised the quality of communication from power sector operators, stating that updates on outages have been irregular, inconsistent, and unreliable, with blackouts often extending beyond announced areas.
The organisation also questioned explanations linking the outages to ongoing transformer upgrades, noting that similar claims in the past by the Electricity Company of Ghana were later found to be inaccurate following independent audits by the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission.
It argued that the scale and duration of the outages point to deeper systemic challenges, including constraints in natural gas supply and processing, inadequate maintenance, and inefficiencies in planning within the power sector.
ACEP urged the Minister for Energy and Green Transition to avoid short-term emergency measures that could create long-term financial and operational risks, and instead focus on addressing structural weaknesses in the sector.
The statement further called for a thorough and credible investigation into the Akosombo substation fire, saying such an incident raises serious concerns about safety standards and operational oversight.
“A fire of that scale should not occur where proper safety systems and modern operational standards are in place,” the statement noted.
As part of immediate measures, ACEP called on authorities to publish a reliable load-shedding timetable to enable households and businesses to plan effectively.
It also urged system operators to provide a clear timeline for restoring full power supply, while calling on the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) to exercise its oversight mandate by conducting an independent investigation into both the fire incident and the broader power crisis.
The organisation further demanded full public disclosure of all investigation findings, including any evidence of misconduct or systemic failure, to ensure accountability and restore public trust in the energy sector.
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