24-hour blackouts considered as power crisis deepens, October 17, 2014 Daily Graphic Pg 1

THE Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) intends to introduce a new schedule of load-shedding timetable to enable consumers to plan their activities to efficiently use power.
This follows the shortfalls that have been experienced in energy generation and distribution of late.
Under the proposed arrangement, the ECG will shut down power supply to specific areas for 24 hours, while other areas will have power for 24 hours.
However, officials of the ECG said the new load-shedding timetable would be implemented only if the current situation continued.
A crisis meeting of stakeholders was held yesterday to review the power supply situation in order for the management of the sector to firm up its decision to implement the proposed timetable regime.
The Public Relations Officer of the ECG, Mr William Boateng, told the Daily Graphic that the country was currently dealing with a power generation shortfall of between 550 and 600 megawatts (MW).
The shortfall, he said, represented about a third of the entire 2,000 MW of power generated for distribution.
Individuals and businesses are currently faced with challenges associated with intermittent power supply.
Some areas in the country have experienced power outage for close to two days, while others have only two hours of power.
The situation has compelled some businesses to close down.

“Worsening situation”
According to Mr Boateng, the ECG could no longer operate with the initial load-shedding timetable which was designed to shed between 300 and 400 MW of power.
Describing the situation as “worsening”, he said the ECG was also having its fair share of the situation, which sometimes led to the shutdown of its transmissions, citing the incident which happened at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital.
 “The more the situation worsens at the generation points, the more it translates into less distribution of power,” he said.
Mr Boateng indicated that the energy crisis in the country had always been a generation problem, not distribution, which was the mandate of the ECG.

Challenges
For their part, officials of the Volta River Authority (VRA), attributed the current challenges to the drop in the water level at the Akosombo generation plant, unreliable gas supply to thermal plants from the West African Gas Pipeline Company and regular maintenance schedules.
The Public Relations Officer of the VRA, Mr Samuel Fletcher, explained that the Aboadze Thermal Plant, which supplied 400 MW, had been shut down for maintenance.
“Another machine at the Akosombo Dam has been shut down due to the low level of the water,” he said, adding that gas supply from Nigeria was 49.7 million standard cubic feet as of October, 15, 2014, a figure which varied from day to day.
He was, however, optimistic that the situation would improve significantly very soon because the maintenance works had been completed for testing.
Mr Fletcher said the energy situation would improve when ongoing projects such as the Kpone Tema Power Plant which would produce 110MW were completed in 2015.

Energy situation in Ghana
In the past 15 years, about 1,000 MW of thermal generation capacity has been added, resulting in Ghana’s current generation capacity of 2,125 MW.
The Akosombo Hydroelectric Power Plant supplies about 1,020 MW of energy, followed by the Bui Dam, which produces 400 MW, with the Aboadze Thermal Plant producing 360 MW and the Takoradi Thermal Plant, 330 MW. 
Kpong produces 160 MW, while the country’s first solar plant at Punga in the Upper East Region produces 2 MW, giving the country 2,272 MW of combined electricity supply.
Thermal power plants to produce 500 MW have been installed and inaugurated in Tema at various times. Some of them are public projects, but most of the capacity is private (Sunon Asogli — 200 MW) or semi-private (CENIT — 126 MW).
Several thermal generation projects, totalling over 1,000 MW, are currently at various stages of development by both public and private operators.
These projects include Kpone (Alstom), Sunon Asogli Expansion, Takoradi 2 combined-cycle expansion, CENIT/TT1PP expansion and Takoradi 3 expansion.
The country still faces unreliable and inadequate power supply, despite the generation capacity made up of about 50 per cent hydro and 50 per cent thermal.