Joseph Cudjoe
GOVERNMENT IS considering relocating the 470megawatts Karpowership Osman Khan from Tema in the Greater Accra Region to a gas supply source in Sekondi in the Western Region for a reliable and cheaper fuel to power the generation plant.
This is to make the powership to offtake gas from Sankofa when it is switched from liquid fuel (HFO) to natural gas to ensure reduction in the cost of power generation to relieve consumers of high electricity tariff.
Mrs. Joseph Cudjoe, Deputy Minister of Energy in charge of Infrastructure and Planning who spoke on behalf of his boss when commissioning the Karpowership in Tema, noted that, the powership might be stationed at the Sekondi Naval Base.
“These initiatives and other related reasons spur us on to embrace projects of this nature and others aimed at boosting a sustainable, diversified and efficient power supply for domestic and industrial consumers,” the deputy minister explained.
Mr. Cudjoe pointed out that government is taking bold steps to improve performance of the power sector by championing universal access to electricity through sustainable grid expansion programmes, financial sustainability for the entire energy value chain through improved revenue collection and system losses reduction.
He also added that government is determined to improve system reliability by implementing capital projects involving rehabilitation, expansion, upgrade and reinforcement of the networks, improvement in operational efficiency by making frontline distribution services providers more responsive to customer needs, and deepen local content by generating more local businesses in the power sub sector.
In addition to the 470MW Powership inaugurated, the deputy minister stated that government has increased the installed generation capacity by another 220MW from the AKSA Plant.
He also mentioned that the ministry is expecting the total installed generation capacity to increase by about 340MW with the commissioning of the Cenpower Combined Cycle Plant in the Tema Industrial Power enclave in the coming year.
The 470MW Powership which is replacing the existing 225MW Powership, runs on dual fuel – low sulphur HFO and Natural Gas – and will evacuate power using the existing 161kV overhead transmission line.
The operator, Karpowership Ghana Company Limited assured inhabitants that with the state of the art technological improvements, the operation of the Powership would not affect the industrial and domestic activities in the area.
From Vincent Kubi, Tema