Nasratu Kargbo
Following complaints from residents in the cities of Bo and Kenema about the poor electricity, shortly after the introduction of the West Africa Power Pool that promised uninterrupted energy supply, the firm responsible has issued a press release explaining the reasons for the outage. TRANSCO CLSG said there was a break in transmission of the 225Kv line from Man to the Yekepa substation in Liberia caused by a very long tree that fell on the conductor outside the 40-meter CLSG transmission line corridor.
It said there was a frequent power outage on the Liberia Electricity Corporate (LEC) network thereby affecting the CLSG auxiliary equipment connected to the LEC 66V/22kV system at Mt Coffee. This has resulted in the SVC at CLSG’s Mount Coffee Substation in Liberia tripping frequently.
The company disclosed that work is going on to install two 200 KVA diesel generators to supply the CLSG substation auxiliaries including the SVC system at the Mount Coffee substation to serve as a backup measure that will ensure stability in the supply of electricity to Sierra Leone.
It was further stated that power has been restored along the transmission line to Bo-Kenema whilst the installation of the backup generators is currently underway. CLSG’s Management assured Sierra Leoneans and the general public of their swift response to remedy the situation.
Reacting to the effect of frequent power outages has had on his business; the CEO of Dohas Hotel in Bo Salia Mohamed Yahyah told Politico that the power outage has greatly affected his business.
“When I have a full house I spend one hundred and fifty million Leones per month just for fuel, not to talk of maintenance of the generator”, Yayah explained. He said he spends one hundred million Leones on prepaid meter credit per month.
Bo Inn’s Engineer Karim Stevens said the new power generation is not stable enough and that has affected their business. Explaining ways in which this has affected their business. He said their customers complain about the air conditioners in their rooms being switched off because management cannot afford to run the generator for the whole day.
He however thanked the government for introducing the new electricity system, admitting that before now the situation was even worse. He said he was hopeful the present problem of the new electricity system will be fixed so they can enjoy uninterrupted power that could help them run their business smoothly.
Copyright © 2022 Politico Online (11/02/22)
