Dumsor: We have enough power capacity for lights to stay on - Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu
- Government insists there is enough power to keep lights on
- Shadow-minister for finance says the AMERI plant will be relocated
- Doubts of dumsor resurfacing follows ongoing erratic cuts
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The Caretaker Finance Minister, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, has stated that Ghana has enough power to ensure all lights are on nationwide.
Presenting the 2021 budget in Parliament, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu revealed that the AMERI Power Plant secured by the NDC administration will be relocated to Kumasi to ensure sustained power generation.
“The country had adequate generation capacity to meet the demand for domestic, commercial and industrial customers. The 200MW Amandi Power Project was approximately 98 percent complete and is currently at the last phase of commissioning. Phase 1A of the 400MW Early Power Project (147MW) is currently going through commissioning. In 2021, the Ameri Plant will be relocated to Kumasi to help stabilise the national grid,” he stated.
Source: UGC
The Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) renegotiations, aimed at reducing capacity charges and consequently the overall cost of power generation, are ongoing.
The 3rd round of negotiations has commenced following approval of the recommendations submitted by the Negotiating Team.
Subsequently, renegotiations were concluded with CENIT Energy Limited, and discussions with AKSA Energy Company (Gh) Limited are nearing completion.
A total of 388 out of 560 communities were connected to the national grid under the Rural Electrification Programme. The National Electricity Access rate increased from 84.98 percent in January 2020 to 85.17 percent by end December 2020 with over 10,000 communities so far connected to the grid.
In 2021, the Ministry will ensure and monitor the completion of ongoing SHEP4 & SHEP-5 projects across the country. Various electrification projects in the Northern, North East, Savannah, Eastern and Volta, Ashanti, Western, Western North, Ahafo, Bono East and Bono Regions, amongst others will also be undertaken. 766 towns will be connected under these projects in 2021.
Is dumsor back?
The Ghanaian public is convinced of the re-emergence of the era of erratic power supply known as “dumsor”. In less than a month, over 10 cases of national power outages have been reported by the Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCO).
Many consumers of the commodity have taken to their personal social media handles to voice out their concern over the matter.
A nationwide power outage was experienced in the afternoon on Sunday, march 7. The Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCO) has attributed this development to some technical faults and thus assured of fixing the program immediately.
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Source: YEN.com.gh
