Insulation failure caused Akosombo substation fire — Committee

The committee set up to investigate the Akosombo substation fire outbreak yesterday presented its report to the Minister of Energy and Green Transition, Dr John Jinapor, attributing the incident to insulation failure.

The committee’s findings, which ruled out deliberate human action, said the inferno began in the changeover section of the low-voltage (LV) panel, where cables installed decades ago had deteriorated over time.

The Ghana Grid Company Limited (GRIDCo) confirmed a major fire outbreak at its Akosombo Substation in the Eastern Region, resulting in disruptions to power supply in parts of the country.

Establishment

The seven-member committee, chaired by the Chairman of the Board of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), William Amuna, recommended the establishment of a state-of-the-art control room to replace the current one.

Among other issues, he indicated that many of the cables had become brittle after years of use, resulting in an insulation failure that allowed electrical current to flow abnormally.

Mr Amuna, who is also a former Chief Executive Officer (CEO), explained that the initial power supply from the substation automatically tripped at 311 amps after detecting the fault and that a second transformer took over the supply, continuing to feed electricity into the damaged section.

"The second transformer nearby took over and started supplying. So it means it was feeding into the fault," he said.

He said the second transformer was configured to trip only at 450 amps, allowing the fault to continue and generate excessive heat.

Fire

Mr Amuna said the plastic insulation caught fire within a short time, adding that the fire spread quickly because the affected LV panel was connected to another panel, surrounded by control cables serving the large substation.

He said the Akosombo substation was a very big one that had 11 outgoing circuits.

“They had a lot of cables in there, and the LV cables were within those cables.

They started burning, and within a short time, the whole place was ablaze," he explained.

Mr Amuna said there was no deliberate human interference and that: “It actually started from insulation failure from some of the cables in the LV panel, and not anybody going to turn something or twist something or whatever”.

The chairman of the committee said a new control building must be put up.

“We have identified the Pokuase Substation, a new substation that meets all the safety standards”.

“Hopefully, we should have a state-of-the-art permanent control building. I expect that such a building should come up between 18 and 24 months,” he said.

Mr Amuna presented three copies of the report to the minister and pledged to honour an invitation from him anytime they were called upon.

Assurance

After receiving the report, Dr Jinapor assured the members of the committee that the government would implement the recommendations  fully.

“I'm glad to be here with you for doing a very pleasant job. I'm not surprised at all, given the calibre of people. Let me assure you that we will take this report seriously.

“We will digest all the content of the report and implement the report to the letter,” Dr Jinapor pledged.

He said although the engineers did a good job in restoring power following the disruption, that was not to say that if somebody was found culpable that person would not be held responsible.

“And so, this will serve as a lesson. Already, based on the briefing we got from you along the line, we've taken some actions.

We've gotten them to be a bit more proactive,” the Minister of Energy stated.

Lesson

“This is a lesson that should teach us to avoid a future occurrence of this very unfortunate situation, and from what you are saying, it's obvious that a lot should have been done over the years.

So this should be a wake-up call for us so that we can strengthen the system, make it more responsive, improve our immediate response system, maintenance culture, and more importantly, invest in the grid in order to have a resilient energy sector,” he emphasised.