Recent and persistent power outages in Freetown has left tongues wagging because of the negative ways it is affecting individuals, entities as well as businesses causing a lot of frustration. However, this medium learnt that the two major sources of electricity supply to Freetown are currently facing technical challenges.
The CLSG line to Freetown is said to be faulty and Bumbuna hydroelectric power station is at the moment undergoing annual routine maintenance. Under normal circumstances, CLSG supplies 27 Megawatts of electricity to Bo, Kenema, Kono and Octea Mining Company in Kono. Bumbuna, on the other hand, under normal circumstances (especially between July and November) supplies 50 Megawatts of electricity to Makeni, Magburaka and Freetown. Karpowership supplies a contractual 65 Megawatts of electricity to Freetown alone.
In 2018, the national grid capacity was 45 Megawatts but was increased to 80 Megawatts and Freetown, because of its expanding population, now requires at least 120 Megawatts of reliable electricity.
As the situation now stands, Freetown depends largely on Karpowership for the supply of electricity as it is only Karpowership that is currently supplying 65 Megawatts of electricity on a daily basis.
With EDSA now coming out of its usual deafening silence on situations like this which most times leaves room for more speculation and doubts over Government’s competence in handling the energy sector, the institution has assured that by Monday, 15th May, 2023 electricity supply to Freetown would have stabilized especially with the completion of maintenance work at Bumbuna and CLSG.
