The Ministry of Energy and the Electricity Company of Ghana have been directed by President Nana Akufo-Addo not to sign any Independent Power Producer (IPP) without going through the competitive bidding process.

The president gave the order when he inaugurated a 20-MW solar plant at Gomoa Onyaadze in the Central Region.

“When we came into office”, the president said: “We inherited a plethora of IPP agreements, all of whom were contracted at the time of our crisis, and, therefore, left us in a weak position, and got us accepting tariff rates of 18 cents per kilowatt hour and over.

“In an era in the world where 10 cents per kilowatt hour is the maximum, we are producing IPP agreements at 18 cents per kilowatt hour”, the president bemoaned, adding that it was “not acceptable”.

“So, in the future, we are going to insist that IPP arrangements are created out of competitive bidding, because it is only by that process that we will be able to get the competitive rates that both our domestic consumers as well as our industrial users need and can work with.

“And then, we are in an age where renewable energy facilities are being produced domestically.

“So, we want to get to a situation here in Ghana whereby these solar panels are produced domestically. And it can be done within the confines of the one district one factory initiative,” the president said, adding that his administration has put in place measures that “will help us, within a decade, to have renewable energy as the majority of the generation mix of our country.”