The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) Training School in Tema has organised a day’s training on earthing for 100 members of the Ghana Electrical Contractors Association (GEAC).
Mr. Aheng Owusu-Afriyie, the Director of the ECG Training School, said the training was in line with training school’s mandate to provide competency assurance and practical training to ensure that electrical engineers and contractors deliver their skills safely.
Mr. Owusu-Afriyie said in addition to that earthing training was done alongside safety, explaining that his outfit analysed the needs in the sector and accordingly came out with training packages to equip them.
He said the contractors were critical as they were part of most of ECG’s works, and therefore, for them to deliver the Company’s standards, they must be trained frequently for ECG to have the assurance that they would do a good job and ensure that its earthworks were up to standard.
Dr. George Eduful, the General Manager of ECG’s Energy Consulting and Telco Business, stated that the training was structured in modules with the main aim of equipping them to deliver in terms of the design and construction of power distribution systems for ECG.
Dr. Eduful said earthing was important in electrical installations because without it there would be safety issues, as it could lead to death and serious injuries.
“If you don’t have it to prevent, it can also result in serious damage; it is very critical as far as an electrical system is concerned.”
He said every building and structure using electricity required earthing, as well as electrical equipment and household gadgets, explaining that a lack of earthing could lead to electrocution when faults develop.
“For example, if you have an electrical installation that is not properly earthed, in the event of faults, if you happen to be within the premises, you can be killed from a step voltage.
“There is a voltage between your two legs when there is a fault and there is no earth, and that can kill you,” he said, adding that “another thing that can happen is that if you have to be within the establishment and you touch any metallic object, you can be electrocuted,” he stated.
He said for that reason it was important that the contractors could design effective earthing systems to protect all ECG infrastructures as well as the public, adding that since standards were not static but rather served as living documents, there was a need to do continuous training to provide the framework for resilience, reliability, safety, and performance.
He said with this, ECG’s power distribution system would not be epileptic in the sense that the moment it started raining, the power went off, stressing that they do not want to have a system that was subjected to the weather condition.
On his part, Mr. Awal Sakib Mohammed, President of the Ghana Electrical Contractors Association, said the reliability and safety of ECG installations relied on the work of the contractors, hence their resolve to collaborate with the Company to train its over 3000 members on earthing.
Mr. Mohammed said since technology and standards kept changing, there was a need to train on best practices to enable them to conduct robust work on the distribution system so ECG could best serve their customers.
