...But Says It is Not Alarming

THE MINISTER of Energy, Hon. Albert Kan Dapaah, yesterday stated on the floor of Parliament that the current energy crisis is nowhere near the scale of the 1998 crisis.

According to him, in 1998, the country did not have any significant thermal complementation and it also did not have enough supply capacity to meet demand.

However, today, there is enough supply to meet demand except that there is no reserve margin, thus whenever a unit has to undergo repairs or planned maintenance, an accident occurs, compelling ECG to shed load.

Unfortunately, VRA has walked from one accident into another hence the irregular supply situation today.

VRA, he noted, has asked VALCO to cut down from four to two potlines effective this midnight.

This action will bring about a savings of 150MW creating the much needed spinning reserve and the chance to repair faulty units without resorting to load-shedding.

The minister stated that VRA has an actual installed capacity of approximately 1652 MW and an import facility of 250MW from Cote d'Ivoire, which compares with a total capacity demand of 1210MW.

Therefore, under normal circumstances, there should be a reserve margin of 690MW which is a very healthy margin.

However, last year the rains failed and as a result instead of the installed hydro capacity of 1072 MW, they are producing only 750 MW.

Similarly, out of the installed capacity of 550MW at the Takoradi complex they can only get 385MW.

He further stated that of the two plants in Takoradi, the first one (TAPCO) wholly owned by VRA and has a capacity of 330MW, since its installation, however, has hardly generated more than half of its capacity and a new plant has refused to work all this while.

He admitted that indeed they were going through difficult times and have resisted the temptation of generating more than 750MW from the hydro sources giving the dangerously low levels of water in the Akosombo dam.

He was very hopeful that the power crisis will stop after VALCO reduces its load but cautioned that there continues to be distribution bottlenecks such that even if ECG had all the power it needed, their own ability to distribute and supply to their customers will continue to be in doubt.

He, therefore, called upon the House and the good people of Ghana to bear with them in these difficult times.