Akosombo control system to be restored next month – Energy Minister

The Minister for Energy and Green Transition, Dr John Abdulai Jinapor, has announced that the original control system at the Akosombo Power Station is expected to be restored by September 2026.

The Akosombo control room was destroyed in a fire in April 2026, disrupting the evacuation of power from the country’s major hydroelectric generation facility and forcing authorities to adopt temporary measures to keep the plant supplying electricity.

He said the restoration would end the temporary arrangement currently being used to evacuate power from the Akosombo generating units to the national grid.

The announcement comes after another nationwide power outage on Thursday, August 20, which GRIDCo attributed to a major fault on the Akosombo-Volta transmission line.

The fault triggered the tripping of Akosombo generating units and other power plants, disrupting electricity supply across several parts of the country.

Speaking on Accra-based JoyNews’ Newsfile programme on Saturday, August 22, Dr Jinapor explained that engineers had initially considered shutting down Akosombo for about six months to allow the control centre to be restored, but government opted for a temporary system to prevent such a prolonged disruption.

“Next month we should have the Akosombo control station back in seven, so that we can now evacuate power direct from Akosombo,” he said.

According to the Minister, the temporary arrangement involved using relays to feed power directly from Akosombo towards Tema, with the Tema control room supporting the system.

“That arrangement is not very robust, but even the circumstance that we find ourselves, we thought that even with the fragility, that was the best option,” Dr Jinapor said.

The latest outage was the second major nationwide power disturbance in three weeks, following another incident on July 29.

GRIDCo has said it is working to strengthen the transmission network following the recent disruptions.

Dr Jinapor also called for increased investment in Ghana’s transmission infrastructure, particularly the Kumasi-Accra transmission line, to provide alternative routes for power evacuation when faults occur.

He said strengthening the grid would improve redundancy and reduce the impact of future system failures.