No fears for electricity * ECG, VRA, GridCO assure

Front Page: Daily Graphic, April 28, 2009.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE three key players in the country’s energy supply chain say they are in good position to meet the electric energy needs of the country for 2009 and beyond.
While the Volta River Authority (VRA), the main producer of electric energy in Ghana, said it would meet the national demand of 1,562 Megawatts (MW), leaving a reserve of 227 MW, the Ghana Grid Company (GridCo), for its part, said a number of activities were underway to improve upon system performance and reliability by reducing the effects of obsolete equipment or redundancies. The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), for its part, said it had made huge investments in the expansion of its infrastructure to ensure adequate and reliable power supply to its customers within three to six months.
While the ECG distributes the energy produced by the VRA, GridCo is the sole transmitter, providing the lines for the distribution of the energy generated.
The chief executive officers of the VRA and GridCO, Owura Sarfo and Mr Joseph Wiafe, respectively, and the Managing Director of the ECG, Mr Jude Adu-Amankwah, announced these measures at a joint press conference in Accra yesterday on short to long-term plans to meet the country’s energy needs.
Owura Sarfo said the total national installed capacity of electric power plants was 1,916MW.
The plants, he said, were from the Akosombo Hydro Generating Station, the Kpong Hydro Generating Station, the Takoradi Thermal Plant Station (TAPCO), the Takoradi Thermal International Company (TICO), a new thermal plant, the Tema 1 Thermal Plant, and an 80MW thermal plant built by a consortium of mining companies in Ghana and handed over to the VRA for operation to support the supply base.
“Also available to support the power supply is a limited amount of power imports, currently 10MW, from CIE of Cote d’Ivoire,” he added.
Owura Sarfo said the reserve margin of 227MW available at any time could either be reserve capacity on a running generating unit or a reserve machine waiting to be connected to the system, saying that “in the event of a sudden change in the demand-supply balance, the reserve capacities on running machines are immediately called upon to correct the imbalance”.
The CEO of the VRA said the inclusion of the 200MW Sunon Asogli Plant and the implementation of a number of projects, including the Bui Plant, expansion works in Takoradi and private producer initiatives, should help address the power needs of the country and make some available for export.
For his part, Mr Wiafe said the power network was faced with overage and obsolete equipment, overloaded facilities due to inability to increase capacity to match demand, among others.
He said it was to address the effects of the state of the national power system that GridCO had installed the Automatic Frequency Load Shedding (AFLS) system to prevent total collapse of the power system.
He said it was to deal with some of the challenges that the company was constructing a number of transmission lines, including the Kumasi-Obuasi line, the Aboadze-Tema line, a third Accra Bulk Supply Point at Agyirigano, and doubling the capacity of the Mallam substation to improve power supply to Accra West.
He said all the projects, which also included the replacement of all equipment at the Volta and Akosombo switching stations and the construction of a second Bulk Supply Point in Kumasi, were scheduled to be completed between 2009 and 2011.
Mr Adu-Amankwah conceded that the ECG had not been able to expand its capacity to meet the seven and eight per cent annual energy growth rate due to lack of funds.
That, he explained, had led to a situation in which most of the network was overloaded.
He, however, said the ECG had secured a number of funding for investment in improving its infrastructure to improve power supply to its customers.
Some of the short-term investments, he said, were GH¢492,383 in Accra East, GH¢399,305 for Accra West, GH¢606,260 for Tema and GH¢529,653 for Ashanti West.
The rest are GH¢1.152 million for Ashanti East, GH¢916,865 for Western, GH¢1,392 million for Volta, GH¢483,966 for Central and GH¢362,287 for Eastern regions.
Mr Adu-Amankwah, who also outlined the medium to long-term investment plans, said the funds, which were being sourced from both donor and government of Ghana sources, were largely available.
Responding to questions on government subsidy, he said the subject was in the domain of the government and not that of the ECG.