Two of the generation units at the Akosombo Dam that were knocked offline by last week’s devastating substation fire have been successfully restored.
Energy Minister John Jinapor who announced on Monday stated that engineers working around the clock to bring a third unit back online as Ghana moves steadily towards recovering from its worst ever power sector disruption.
The minister made the announcement during a media briefing at the Government Accountability Series, disclosing that he had received confirmation just hours before the briefing that the second unit had been restored and was generating power.
“This afternoon, as I was preparing to come for this briefing, I received confirmation from the acting GRIDCo Managing Director and the VRA Managing Director that the second unit has also been brought on and is generating power,” Mr Jinapor said.
The first unit had been restored the previous day, marking the first breakthrough since the fire tore through the Akosombo switchyard control room on Thursday April 23, 2026, leaving over 1,000 megawatts of power stranded and triggering widespread disruptions across parts of the country.
The minister said the restoration of the two units was the result of emergency technical interventions and sheer determination by engineers who had remained on site for three continuous days without leaving, working under extremely difficult conditions.
“Through emergency technical interventions and sheer determination, the first generation unit was successfully restored yesterday,” he said, adding that the achievement was all the more remarkable because the technical teams had deployed innovative technology that had never previously been used following an incident of this nature, and it had proven successful.
Work on the third unit was already underway, the minister said, and it was expected to come back online as soon as possible.
The restoration of the third unit would then pave the way for the remaining three units to be brought back on using the same innovative approach that had worked on the first two.
“When we bring on the third unit, it then paves the way that the new technology, the innovative technology that they have never used following this incident has proven to be successful. Then they will bring on the remaining three units,” Jinapor said.
The minister said engineers were pushing to restore all the plants within the week, though he cautioned that given the fluid nature of the situation, the government could only provide short-interval updates rather than weekly schedules.
He said a schedule published that morning for the period from 6am to 6pm had already had to be revised by the afternoon because one more plant had come back online, adding approximately 140 megawatts to the system.
The Minister used the occasion to pay a heartfelt tribute to the technical teams whose relentless efforts had made the progress possible.
“Your dedication, your professionalism and unwavering commitment in the face of these daunting challenges is truly, truly commendable. I salute you, I thank you, I commend you and I am immensely proud of what you have achieved so far,” he said, adding that he intended to visit the engineers on site personally that evening to thank and encourage them.
The minister said safety remained the top priority throughout the restoration process, stressing that the work would be done diligently and in accordance with all safety standards.
“We would move with alacrity. We would move swiftly, but we would not seek to cut corners,” he said.
The fire severely damaged the control room at the Akosombo switchyard, which serves as the nerve centre through which power generated at the site is channelled before distribution through the national grid. Its loss had immediately cut off Ghana’s largest generation source from the grid, causing the widespread outages that have affected homes, businesses and industries across the country.
Mr Jinapor assured Ghanaians that the disruption was temporary and that the government would not rest until full normalcy was restored.
“This experience you are going through is transient, it is temporary, and I assure the people of Ghana that we shall work around the clock to restore normalcy and improve the sector,” he said.
Richard Aniagyei, ISD
