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Unstable Power Supply To Impact On Elections Results – Experts

By Adnan Adams Mohammed
Business & Finance Unstable Power Supply To Impact On Elections Results – Experts
OCT 28, 2016 LISTEN

The current unstable electricity supply to consumers, has ignited a worry to many Ghanaians who are suspecting that, it is an unannounced officially but a form of load shedding of electricity in most cities and towns of the country.

This has pushed some energy experts to caution the NDC led government to be conscious and put in place immediate measures to curtail any emergent of load shedding since it will have great impact on the direction of the December 2016, elections result.

However, the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has declared that the current power outages are not indications of power crisis or the return of load shedding, otherwise known as “dumsor.”

Rather, the management said the recent power outages were as a result of distribution challenges which arose from scheduled maintenance of some equipment or repair of technical faults of some of their equipment.

“Admittedly, we have taken note of series of outages in some areas within our distribution system, but we wish to state as a matter of fact that it is not load shedding,” it said.

Addressing the media on the situation in Accra yesterday, the Director of Operations at the ECG, Mr Tetteh Okine said the power distribution company was receiving enough energy for supply.

Apparently, the Head of Policy Unit at the Africa Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP), Dr Ishmael Ackah, and Kojo Poku, an Energy Expert both agree the country is not likely to sustain the high cost of importing crude oil to feed power barges.

Kojo Poku says Ghana’s huge debt to Nigeria Gas (N-Gas), about $300 million, for which reason gas supply to power thermal plants has been cut, could have been avoided.

“We are spending so much in importing crude oil to power the plants because we are not paying our debts to NGas to get the gas in as we should.

"We are spending [about] 30 million dollars every four months to bring in 600, 000 barrels of crude oil. That works out 90 million a year. What is our debt to N-Gas?” he was baffled.

Currently, the Sunon Asogli Power Plant, which produces 200 MW of power and the CENET Power Plant (126MW) have been shut down due cut in gas supply from N-Gas.

ACEP’s Dr Ishmael Ackah also said a fall in power supply is very likely next year when a routine shutdown of the FPSO Kwame Nkrumah starves Karpower and Ameri power plants of gas.

“Early next year, for eight to four weeks, we are going to fix the FPSO, so it is going down for about three months. If we do the repairs on-site, there will not be any trouble. If we do it off-site, we are going to lose gas to Ameri, it means Ameri too will not be working so these are some of the reasons why they are saying that next year there may be dumsor,” he explained.

Meanwhile, the government has dismissed as false, reports that Ghana is purchasing power from Ivory Coast to end the painful power-rationing regime endured by Ghanaians for almost four years.

Deputy Power minister John Jinapor has explained Ghana does not need its western neighbour to end load-shedding, rather it buys power from Ivory Coast for strategic reasons.

"The assertion that load shedding is over because we are importing power from Cote D'Ivoire is not true", he said on Joy FM's Super Morning Show Wednesday.

There are media reports from the Finder newspaper Ghana is importing 185megawatts of power from Côte d'Ivoire while thermal power plants lie idle in Ghana.

According to the paper, this is because power from the western neighbour is cheaper than power produced in Ghana.

Côte d'Ivoire generates thermal power at the cost of 9 cents per kilowatt hour and sells it to Ghana for 11 cents while thermal plants in Ghana sell their power from 14 cents and above, the paper reported.

"If you don't do the analysis well, you might look at it from a flawed point of view...we give power to Ivory Coast...we give power to Togo, we give power to Benin and sometimes we take power from Ivory Coast," he explained.

The deputy minister explained that West African countries have entered into a power pool to share electricity. In that spirit, Ghana may take hydro-power from Ivory Coast if it proves cheaper than power from Ghana's Kpone Thermal Power Plant.

The deputy minister has emphasised that "with or without Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana is self-sufficient with power production".

He explained that the arrangement with Cote d'Ivoire is a power-sharing deal. "Anytime we take power we pay and anytime we give them power, they pay us," he said.

"There is nothing wrong with sharing power," he said and referred to enduring power-sharing arrangements between Britain and Germany.

He admitted however that sometimes power from Ivory Coast is cheaper. Cost is however not the only reason why government buys power. "In business, you don't just look at cost alone. We look at sustainability and market penetration," he said.

Explaining why Ghana has entered into a power-sharing deal with its neighbour, the deputy minister said it is for strategic reasons.

Ghana is sharing because it wants to conserve its own sources of power for a rainy day, he indicated.

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