Power Minister to announce end to ‘dumsor’ soon
The President, Mr John Dramani Mahama, has given a strong assurance that the Power Minister will shortly announce an end to load shedding in the country,
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He said that would come as a great relief to people, industry and commerce which have bad to endure almost three years of the debilitating power crisis.
Addressing Western Regional executives of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) as part of his four-day working visit to the Western and Central Regions, the president admitted the difficulties the power crisis had brought on the people.
He said it was important to note that the government was not going to give excuses and run away from the realities of the power crisis or start the blame game.
“I will say it again – I owned up and took responsibility and I can assure the country that we will fix it,” he said.
Keeping ahead
The President said as part of the government’s strategy to make Ghana the hub of power generation in West Africa, there was an agreement for 1,000 megawatts (MW) of emergency power which was expected to feed into the national grid in the next few months.
He said an additional pact had been signed for 3,600MW of power.
He said the country had high demand for electricity, which he attributed to the continued growth of the economy.
“As a result, there is the need to keep ahead of the demand by putting in place permanent solutions to the current situation,” he said.
Realistic time
“Between 2015 and 2020, Ghana will have more power than she will need and the next move is pushing for the West African Power Pool Project to ensure efficiency in managing the amount of power that will be generated in order to avoid capacity charge.” he said.
The President explained that for Ghana to become a net exporter of power, its infrastructure had been connected to Togo and Benin, while work was progressing on a connection to Nigeria.
With such inter-country connectivity and perfect infrastructure, the excess power could easily be pushed out for use by other countries, he said
“Currently, the Ghana Grid Company (GRIDco) is connecting to Cote d’Ivoire to enable us to transmit extra power to that country as well,” he said.
Akosombo
He said as part of the government’s plan to ensure sustainability in the face of threatening issues of climate change, Akosombo would become a supplementary power source for the country.
Strategically, he said, there was the need to ensure increase in the thermal generation with a clean fuel source to meet the country’s energy needs and possibly those of its neighbours
Power & reliable fuel source
The Atuabo Gas Processing Plant, he said, was strategically positioned to supply cheap gas to the Aboadze Power Enclave.
“The emergency power gas plants with the capacity of 250MW and another plant with 100MW will be added to the Aboadze enclave, on whom civil works are currently ongoing, “he added.
Aside from the ABoadze plants, there were other projects that would be situated at Domuyle within Nzemamanle, he said, which would pass as another power enclave.
The President said more generating units had to go with the corresponding increase in the constant, clean and cheaper fuel source, saying, “Aside from the 1.2 trillion standard cubic feet (TCF) of associated gas currently being shipped to Atuabo plant, the ENI Sankofa field has the prospect of more than 1.5TCF and Kosmos Energy’s discovery also comes with 1.4TCF which will not be exported but will be for internal use.”
