[ 2014-08-19 ]

Ghana's power generation to be hit by crisis - ACEP
If the rains do not come between now and
September, the country's power generation would
face yet another crisis, the African Centre for
Energy Policy said Monday.

The Executive Director of ACEP, Amin Adam, said
“we are coming back to the crisis we had in the
90s when the water levels in Akosombo caused
energy shortage.”

Maximum operating water level for the Akosombo
reservoir is 84.73m, representing 278.00ft while
the minimum operating level is 73.15m (240.00ft).

As at Sunday, August 17, 2014, the water level
stood at 74.29m (243.73ft). There has been a
decrease of 0.018m (0.06ft) on Monday.

In the previous year, August 17, 2013, the level
was 77.92m (255.64ft), an improvement over this
year's.

With the drop in water level in the past, Amin
Adam said there were plans to develop thermal
generation as an alternative to hydro power in
order to curb the over reliance on hydro.

However, he told Joy News Monday evening that the
Volta River Authority has disappointed the country
for not increasing the thermal generation to the
size of the Akosombo.

To him, “we should have sufficiently invested in
generation capacity; internal complementation to
the extent that we would have reserved margin to
accommodate the shortage in power that we'll get
as a result of the declining water levels.”

Dr. Amin added that “as a country, our planning
has been poor; the execution of our planning has
also been poor to the extent that, to date, we
should not be crying because the levels of water
in Akosombo are dropping.”

The country's inability to have done this long
ago, he stated “is a very serious failure on our
part as a country.”

He explained further that any planning, which
depended on rain water could not be sustained
because “we do not have control over the rains
and so, there are times the rains would be
disappointing.”

And when the rains become disappointing, then
there would be energy shortage because of the
inability to produce adequate electricity.

It is for this reason that, “since the time we
did the power sector reform document; we agreed
that we needed thermal complementation as an
alternative and so, we decided to invest in
thermal generation.”

Touching on tariffs, Dr. Amin indicated the public
should prepare to bear the cost of increasing the
supply of electricity.

He maintained that “we must be ready to pay the
true cost – real cost of bringing power to our
industries, our homes and commercial centres,”
adding that “without energy, our economic growth
is in danger.”

Source - MyjoyOnline

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