Power outages to ease in stages, full stability expected by December - Deputy Energy Minister

The Deputy Minister for Energy and Green Transition, Mr Richard Gyan-Mensah, has set out a three-stage plan to restore stable electricity supply, indicating that full relief from the current outages may not be achieved until December 2026.

Speaking in a television interview on Joy News’ PM Express on on Monday [ April 27, 2026], Mr Gyan-Mensah said the recovery process would move in phases, starting with short-term improvements expected within days.

“Our generation challenges will be addressed by the end of this week,” he said, referring to ongoing repair works at the Akosombo hydroelectric facility. “Beyond that, by the end of June, we should see improvement. By the end of the year, we should see full restoration.”

The plan begins with the return of all six generating units at Akosombo, expected by the close of the week. This will be followed by the completion of the first phase of a nationwide transformer replacement programme by the end of June. Full and stable power supply is projected for December 2026.

The current outages worsened after a fire on April 23, 2026, damaged the control room at the Akosombo plant and reduced output by more than 1,000 megawatts.

As of April 27, two of the six units had been restored, adding between 280 and 300 megawatts to the national grid. The Minister for Energy, Mr John Abdulai Jinapor, visited the site the same day to monitor progress. Engineers are using bypass methods to restore operations, with more than 250 personnel from the Volta River Authority, GRIDCo and the Electricity Company of Ghana, alongside retired engineers, working on the repairs.

Mr Gyan-Mensah said restoring all units at Akosombo would address the shortfall in power generation, which has driven the outages. He added that supply interruptions may continue due to ageing distribution systems, including overloaded and outdated transformers.

The first phase of the transformer replacement programme will cover faulty units across the networks of the Electricity Company of Ghana and the Northern Electricity Distribution Company by the end of June. A second phase to address overloaded equipment will follow over the next three months, with completion expected by December 2026.

Mr Gyan-Mensah said the Akosombo incident was not the only cause of the shortfall. A GRIDCo report as of 7 a.m. on April 27 showed that the country was generating 54 per cent of expected capacity, with thermal plants operating at 66 per cent of their potential output. Some plants were under maintenance when the fire occurred, and engineers had to suspend that work to restore the supply.

He also confirmed that electricity exports to Burkina Faso, Togo and Benin had been suspended from April 25 to conserve power for domestic use.

Asked when the outages would end, Mr Gyan-Mensah said supply interruptions may still occur, but response times would improve.

The government expects that once Akosombo returns to full capacity, Ghanaians will begin to see some relief, even as work continues towards a stable supply by the end of the year.