The BBC has reported on intermittent but widespread power outages in Ghana, with a complex set of circumstances contributing to the situation.

The most recent outage was caused by a “supply gap of 550 MW at peak time” at Tema power station near the country’s capital, Accra, because of “limited gas supply”. This represented around 10% of Ghana’s total power generation capacity, and while the outages are not uncommon in the country, they are usually less severe, with the outages at the end of October being the worst for two years.

Most of the problems appear to be economic at base. The country is going through a serious economic crisis (the central bank having lost around US$5.2 billion last year), and in July, private power generators threatened to cease their operations if they were not paid money owed to them by the state-run Electricity Company of Ghana.

The BBC relays that some reports suggest that the latest gas supply shortage was because gas suppliers had not been paid.