Industries demand full electricity

Government has been advised to dedicate the electrical power produced from the two thermal plants in Tema for the industries.

The plants are the Social Security National Insurance Trust 126 Megawatts (MW) Tema CENIT Thermal Power Plant and the 126MW Tema Thermal 1 Power Plant in Tema for the Industries.

Mrs Kate Papafio-Quartey, Chairperson for the Electricals and Electronic and Energy Sector of the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), said the dedication of the two plants will assure industry of available and reliable electricity supply and solve the energy crisis facing Industries in the country

Speaking at a programme dubbed: “Restoring Electricity Supply for Industrial Production”, Mrs Papafio-Quartey said the proposed partnership with government and SSNIT would demonstrate the willingness of government to find a lasting solution to the electricity crisis facing Industries.

She said AGI shall deploy its commercial, financial and technical expertise to increase the efficiency of the two power plants by supporting their expansion into a combined cycle unit and also increase the electricity produced.

Mrs Papafio-Quartey said the Special Load Tariff (SLT) customers, under the auspices of AGI, should form a partnership to cooperate with ECG to receive electrical energy from the two plants.

She said the Tema Industrial area would reserve firm capacity from the dedicated plants to enable Industries to plan their long term production and create more jobs for export and domestic market.

“AGI shall support the upgrading and reinforcement of the interconnections for SLT customers to improve system reliability and integrity”, she added.

She said the load shedding has impacted negatively on industries resulting in low capacity, redundancy of workers, low morale, and inability to contribute full payments to Social Security and National Insurance Trust as well as loss of investor confidence in the country.

Source: GNA