[ 2014-10-20 ]

More power from Akosombo, Bui to ease load shedding
Contingency measures have been instituted by the
Ministry of Energy for an additional 300 megawatts
(MW) of power to ease the burden associated with
the frequent power outages in the country.

A crunch meeting was held at the Ministry of
Energy last Thursday to re-evaluate the cutback of
power generation at the Bui and the Akosombo power
generation stations to find an immediate solution
to the current power crisis bedevilling
consumers.

“At the end of the meeting, it was decided that
the Bui Power Authority (BPA) will begin adding
daytime production of 100MW and 200MW at peak time
in the short term, while the Akosombo Dam will
open one unit, in addition to the four units that
are currently generating power,” the Minister of
Energy and Petroleum, Mr Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah,
told the Daily Graphic in an interview in Accra at
the weekend.

He said the Akosombo Dam last Friday began running
on five units, instead of the four it had been
operating in the past.

“These are temporary measures we are putting in
place as we work to generate more power to relieve
individuals and businesses of the power crisis,”
he said.

Bui Power Authority
Mr Buah said the Bui Dam was generating 200MW due
to the low water level in the dam but explained
that under the circumstance, the BPA had been
given the green light to generate additional
100MW.

“This is a decision to bring immediate relief to
the very intense load shedding being faced now,”
he said.

“It is expected that the Aboadze thermal plants
that are currently down for maintenance works will
be brought back into operation soon, so that the
dams can be managed.

“There is no amount of words that can explain
the difficulty that the people of Ghana are going
through with this load shedding and its impact on
industries and homes. We are doing everything
possible to bring the situation under control,”
Mr Buah said.

Power crisis
Ghana is currently grappling with a power
generation deficit of between 550MW and 600MW,
representing a third of the entire 2,000MW of
power generated for distribution.

The situation is troubling domestic and industrial
consumers who have had to either cope with many
hours of blackout or spend substantial amounts of
money outside their budgets in fuelling their
power generators.

The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) intends to
introduce a new schedule of load shedding that
will shut down power supply to specific areas for
24 hours, while other areas will enjoy power for
24 hours.

Current challenges in the power sector can be
attributed to the drop in the water levels at the
Akosombo and the Bui power generation plants,
unreliable gas supply to thermal plants from the
West African Gas Pipeline Company, the high cost
of crude oil to power plants and regular
maintenance schedules of power plants.

Energy situation in Ghana
In the past 15 years, about 1,000MW of thermal
generation capacity has been added, resulting in
Ghana’s current generation capacity of 2,125MW.

The Akosombo Hydroelectric Power Plant supplies
about 1,020MW of energy, followed by the Bui Dam,
which produces 400MW, with the Aboadze Thermal
Plant producing 360MW and the Takoradi Thermal
Plant 330MW.

Kpong produces 160MW, while the country’s first
solar plant at Punga in the Upper East Region
produces 2MW, giving the country 2,272MW of
combined electricity supply.

In spite of this, Ghana has continuously operated
below capacity.

Power barges
Meanwhile, two emergency power barges are
currently under construction to generate 450MW of
power to beef up power supply in the country.

The two barges, each of which has 225MW capacity,
are expected in the country by the end of the
second quarter of 2015.

Already, the first barge, constructed by Messrs
Karadeniz Power Group/Karpower of Turkey, a
renowned global power ship manufacturing company,
has been completed and is expected in the country
by the first quarter of 2015.

The second barge is expected by the second quarter
of next year.

Additionally, the Kpone Tema Power plant, which
will produce 110MW of power, is currently under
construction and is expected to come on stream in
2015.

Source - Daily Graphic

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