The Ghana Grid Company Limited (GRIDCo) has attributed Thursday morning’s widespread power outage to a major fault on the Akosombo–Volta transmission line.
The fault occurred at about 4:30 a.m. on Thursday, August 20, 2026, disrupting electricity supply to parts of the country.
According to GRIDCo, the fault triggered the automatic tripping of the Akosombo generating units and some thermal power plants. The company explained that the shutdown was activated by the power system’s protection mechanisms to safeguard the integrity and stability of the National Interconnected Transmission System.
Restoration efforts underway
GRIDCo said its engineers, working with other power-sector agencies, immediately moved to isolate the affected transmission line and began the safe and systematic restoration of the power system.
The company said electricity had already been restored to some affected areas, while restoration efforts continued to reconnect customers in the remaining areas as quickly and safely as possible.
GRIDCo apologised for the inconvenience caused by the temporary outage and said all relevant technical teams had been mobilised to achieve a full restoration.
The latest disruption comes less than a month after another major nationwide power disturbance on July 29, 2026, which affected several parts of the country
The repeated outages have renewed concerns about the reliability and resilience of Ghana’s national electricity transmission system. The Institute for Energy Security has called for a technical assessment of the latest incident and greater transparency over the challenges affecting the national grid.
GRIDCo said it will continue providing updates as restoration work progresses.
