Grid asset monitoring · Ghana

GridWatch

Knowing that a transformer has failed, what has failed, and what the crew needs to bring — before the phone starts ringing.

POA Nexgen Technologies · Accra
Prepared for the Energy Commission of Ghana
28 July 2026
The problem

When a transformer fails, the customer knows first.

Not the engineer. Not the utility. And not the regulator. A phone call from someone whose fridge stopped is Ghana's early warning system.

Why it costs money

Two different faults. From the ground, they look identical.

Bottom of the pole

Low-voltage fuse

A man stands on the ground and changes it in ten minutes.

Top of the pole

High-voltage cutout

A crew must climb, with different tools and different safety gear.

Send the wrong crew and the fault stays live — burning out customers' motors while it waits.

The regulator's position

You regulate using numbers reported by the people you regulate.

Outage duration, restoration time, reliability performance — every figure the Commission holds today arrives from the licensee whose performance it measures.

What we built

A box that clips on, and software that knows what it means.

The hardware

Clips onto what is already there

The sensor closes around the outside of the cable, like a clothes peg. Nothing is cut. No customer loses power during installation.

The software

Names the fault, not just the alarm

Works out what is actually wrong, and tells the right person what to carry and how high to climb.

Switch to the console

Let me just show you.

Say the word simulated out loud before the first click.

The most important design decision

It sees the fault. It says nothing yet.

A fault must appear three times in a row before the system speaks. No sensor is perfect — and a system that cries wolf is switched off by month two.

1 of 3
Seen. Holding.
2 of 3
Still there. Still silent.
3 of 3
Now it is sure. Now it speaks.
What the crew receives

Not "there is a problem". Which problem, and what to bring.

Open phase

Low-voltage fuseway

Ground level. Carry a J-type fuse link matched to the unit rating.

Single phasing

High-voltage cutout

Climb to the primary. Do not open the low-voltage fuseway.

One sentence — the difference between this morning and Thursday.

For the Commission

An outage record that nobody had to be asked for.

Every interruption timestamped by the equipment itself. Reliability computed from measurement rather than submission — across every region and every operator.

The difference between being told and being able to check.

Stated plainly · 1 of 3

This will not catch electricity theft.

Catching theft means comparing what the transformer sent out against what every customer actually used. That needs a remotely-readable meter on every house. Those meters do not exist yet at scale.

When they do, this system is ready. Today, it is not — and we will not sell it to you.

Stated plainly · 2 of 3

On its own, this does not pay for itself.

$117k
Saved each year by preventing failures
our own estimate
$171k
Cost each year to run it
1,000 units
−$54k
The honest answer
before any capital

What you buy is sight of your own network, safety, and an independent record. Not profit.

Stated plainly · 3 of 3

We wrote terms of reference for this. Please do not use them.

If the Commission tenders using a document we drafted, we would have written our own examination. Publish your own specification, tender it openly, and we will compete like everybody else.

A contract that cannot survive an audit is worth nothing to us, and less than nothing to you.

What we are asking for

Not a national system. Three hundred transformers and a question.

150

Instrumented

Fitted with monitoring, in one district.

150

Control group

As similar as possible. Nothing fitted at all.

18 months

Then compare

A real number instead of everybody's opinion.

Nobody in Ghana currently knows how often these transformers actually fail. Not the Commission, not ECG, not us.

The number
$672,680

Everything, over eighteen months: hardware, engineering, software, installation, training — and an independent evaluation we do not control.

And one request that costs nothing: one meeting with your engineers and ECG, to turn fourteen of our assumptions into your own figures.

And one thing that costs nothing

The cheapest transformer to fit is one you are already replacing.

ALREADY THERE

The crew and the vehicle

No separate trip. The visit is already paid for.

ALREADY OFF

The outage window

No live-line work at all, and not one extra minute without power.

ONE THIRD

Of the retrofit cost

Fitted on the bench before it goes up the pole.

Retrofit the fleet you have. Fit the ones you are installing anyway — that part is a decision, not a purchase.

To close

That you find out first — and from your own equipment.

Everything shown today is in the proposal, including the three uncomfortable parts.

Prince Owusu · Managing Director
info@poanexgen.com
020 494 3468 · 024 696 8397
poanexgen.com
POA Nexgen · GridWatch
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