The Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) has commenced a detailed incident monitoring exercise at the Sunyani operational areas of the Northern Electricity Distribution Company (NEDCo) and the Ghana Grid Company Limited (GRIDCo), following a major power outage that plunged the Sunyani Municipality and surrounding communities into darkness.
The blackout occurred on Tuesday, 20 January 2026, after a technical fault developed on one of GRIDCo’s largest transformers at the Sunyani switch yard. The fault, which affected Transformer Two (T2)—a 33 megavolt-ampere (MVA) unit—significantly disrupted electricity supply across parts of the municipality.
The outage brought business activities to a near standstill, particularly for enterprises that depend heavily on electricity for production and service delivery. Many operators reported losses as commercial operations were forced to shut down for several hours.
In response, a joint PURC team from Accra and the Bono Regional Office paid a working visit to Sunyani, where they held separate engagements with officials of NEDCo and GRIDCo to establish the cause of the outage and assess the response measures taken.
Briefing the PURC team, the Sunyani Area Manager of NEDCo, Ing. Eugene Odoi Addo, explained that the incident occurred around 4:00 p.m. when operators detected unusual sounds from the switch yard, accompanied by smoke and oil spillage around one of the transformers.
“The fault was traced to Transformer Two (T2), which is the larger of the two transformers at the substation and a critical component of power distribution in Sunyani,” Ing. Odoi Addo said. “For safety reasons, power supply was immediately switched off to protect lives and property.”
Despite the severity of the fault, he noted that engineers were able to partially restore about 42 per cent of the 11kV load to selected areas, particularly critical installations, to ensure essential services continued while repair works progressed.
The incident compelled NEDCo to introduce a temporary eight-hour power management schedule, a development that left many shop owners and small-scale operators counting their losses.
Ing. Odoi Addo further recommended the installation of a higher-capacity transformer to adequately support Sunyani’s growing population and expanding electricity demand, stressing that such an upgrade would improve system resilience and reduce future disruptions.
Speaking in an interview with Asaase News after the engagements, Ing. Enyonam Kumi of the Energy Service and Performance Monitoring Directorate at PURC Headquarters in Accra said the Commission would thoroughly review the technical and operational data presented by both utilities.
“The PURC will assess the response actions taken during the outage, as well as the quality of power supply after restoration,” she stated. “We take issues of power reliability very seriously and will follow up to ensure that the necessary corrective and preventive measures are fully implemented.”
Ing. Kumi commended NEDCo and GRIDCo for their swift coordination and efforts in restoring power to affected areas within the shortest possible time, assuring the public of continuous monitoring to enhance electricity supply reliability in the municipality.
As part of the visit, the PURC team also interacted with some affected customers in Sunyani to gather first-hand accounts of the impact of the outage.
The monitoring team was led by the Bono Regional Manager of PURC, Patrick Antwi and the Senior Compaints Officer, Isaac Osei Agyeman, and included Ing. Enyonam Kumi and Cecil Oduro-Nyarko, both of the Energy Service and Performance Monitoring Directorate at PURC Headquarters.
Reporting by Daniel Donkor for Asaase News in the Bono Region
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