Power Ministry to increase electricity generation to 1,000MW
The Ministry of Power is working on different emergency power strategies, to increase the generation capacity by about 1,000Mega Watts (MW), to shore up the erratic power supply, Dr Kwabena Donkor, the sector Minister has said.
Dr Donkor said the country is working relentlessly to restore existing power plants, that have been redundant due to several factors, and is pursuing 250MW project at Aboadze and the 250MW General Electric Plant, all to stabilize the power situation.
Speaking at the Meet The Press series in Accra on Monday, the Minister said, the Ministry in collaboration with stakeholders have made strides in the completion and commissioning of the 220MW Kpone Thermal Power Project and 110MW Tico Expansion Project.
He said the Ministry, in the medium-term, is taking measures to add an excess of 3,000MW through the 360MW Asogli phase two project, 350MW Cent power project, 360MW Jacobsen project, 240MW Amandi project and 1,000MW of clean coal into the generation mix.
Dr Donkor stressed that the purpose of adding substantial generation capacities was to create the needed reserve margin to efficiently run a power supply system that is robust and resilient to meet the country’s increasing demand.
He said the country currently is shedding 440MW during off peak period, as against planned 250MW and 650MW at peak as against 350MW.
“The total available generation capacity is currently at 1,494MW at its peak and 1,238MW off peak, leaving a deficit in generation capacity on the National Interconnected Transmission Network, “ he added.
The Minister noted that the current load shedding was due to unavailability of some of the generating plants, where two units at Akosombo cannot be operated, while the other four can only operate at reduced output of 125MW, instead of the rated 170MW, due to low water level.
He added that one out of four units at Kpong is out of service for retrofit, while TAPCO unit number two is limited to 60MW, due to high exhaust temperature spread and load tunnel temperature, as well as the CENIT plant being down for hot gas path inspection.
Dr Donkor said the Ministry has directed the Electricity Company of Ghana to ensure the publication of the load-shedding schedule, to ensure equity, and attend to isolated outages not directly related to the load shedding.
He was optimistic that the country’s energy situation would be restored this year, and that it has started the process of restructuring some of the power sector institutions to achieve the expected results.
Source: GNA