Only about 1,500 megawatt (MW) or 51 per cent of the country’s 2,936 MW installed capacity of power is currently available, the Ghana Growth and Development Platform report has noted.
The reason is mainly due to government’s inability to purchase light cycle crude oil to power the thermal plants.
There had also been some decline in rainfall patterns in the country which has affected the hydro plants at Akosombo and Bui.
Peak power demand in Ghana currently stands at about 2,000 MW. In 2014, Ghana’s peak load ranged between 1,900-2,200 MW.
According to the report, the impression created by the government that the major challenge with Ghana’s erratic power supply is the lack of generation capacity, and therefore signing additional power purchase contracts with independent power producers (IPPs) will automatically resolve this challenge is not entirely true.
“We are of the opinion that the current round of power outages has nothing to do with the lack of generation capacity, but more to do with fuel availability – light cycle crude oil and natural gas to power the thermal plants -and other causal factors”, the report added.
Demand for energy has been estimated to increase between 10 and 15 per cent year-on-year in the past three decades.
The report therefore said new generation capacity must increase by at least the same percentage per year in order to support expanding industrial, institutional, commercial, household and other needs as the country grows and develops.
Poor credit risk of the Electricity Company of Ghana, gas supply challenges from the West African gas pipeline, poor infrastructure planning, maintenance and lack of system redundancy resulting in many thermal plants going offline and distorted tariff regime pushing IPPs to ask for sovereign guarantees in power purchase agreements (PPAs) before commencing operations have been major concerns to the power shortfall.
Gross electricity supplied in 2013 was about 12,871 GWh (an average of 1,469 MW per day) against a forecast of 16,113 GWh (1,839 MW per day) for the year.
Of the actual quantity supplied, hydro comprised only 936 MW, 32 per cent of the total installed capacity whereas thermal sources constituted 527 MW, 18 per cent of the total installed capacity.
This condition created a 20 per cent supply deficit in relation to forecasted demand, thus necessitating the load-shedding that has been ongoing since 2013.
Hydroelectric generation at Akosombo, Bui and Kpong constituted 53.8 per cent of the 2,936MW installed capacity whereas thermal generation at the dual fuel natural gas, light cycle oil and diesel plants located in Tema and Takoradi (Aboadzi) provided 45.9 per cent of installed capacity in 2013.
Renewables constituted only 0.1 per cent whereas LPG generation from Genser power provided the remaining 0.2 per cent of installed capacity.
<<Print>>