[ 2016-03-03 ]

Re-negotiate or abrogate all Emergency Power Contracts - ACEP
The Africa Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP) has
presented its State of the Energy Sector and is
among other things asking government to
renegotiate or abrogate all Emergency Power
Contracts that have failed to yield results.

Addressing a press conference to highlight issues
pertaining to the country’s energy sector, the
Deputy Executive Director of ACEP Ben Boakye noted
that although the centre acknowledges the efforts
being made by government to address the power
situation in the country – albeit a partial
fulfilment of the promised generation addition in
2015 a lot more needs to be done.

As part of measures to address the power crisis,
Government signed a number of such agreements with
some Power Producing companies.

Some of these resulted in the arrival of the
Kar-Powership and the Ameri plants, among others.

At a press conference, the Deputy Executive
Director of ACEP Ben Boakye, however emphasized,
it’s about time most of the contracts were at
least renegotiated, or completely abrogated to
ensure value for money.

“You have the 370 Megawatts AKSA emergency
plant, the 300 Megawatt TEI emergency plant and
the 300 Megawatt GEE Power Projects.

“All these emergency plants have failed to
deliver on their timelines and that’s why we are
saying that if we have hope that KTPP and Asogli
phase 2 Project will come on stream this year,
then we don’t need these emergency plants
including the Karpower barges that are coming”
he noted.

The energy expert therefore believes Ghana would
obviously need more power in the long-term –
landed Independent Power Producers, IPPs or power
plants so “if there is any opportunity to
renegotiate for their failure to deliver on time,
then this is the time to do it, or we cancel the
contract” he stressed.

ACEP is doubtful the current generation of about
1900MW of power would able to satisfy the
country’s demand for power from the grid, which
at peak stood at 2,100MW in 2014, and projected by
Energy Commission to reach 2300MW in 2015.

This, it noted does not even cover demand from
Valco, which requires about 350MW to operate
fully. It also under-estimates the projections in
the demand for power, estimated to grow at 12% in
2015. The centre is therefore asking government to
expedite action in realizing the promised 5,000MW
by end of 2016.

Source - Joy Business

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