Dr. Kwabena Donkor, Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Energy, says the country must consider energy generation from coal.

Dr. Donkor, who was speaking recently at a seminar in Accra said, “Ghana needs an alternative source of power and coal could be a cheaper and better source of energy for the country going forward.”

He said with demand for gas exceeding the anticipated gas supply from the Ghana Gas Company, it was imperative to look for other alternatives of power generation to meet the increasing demand for power in the country.

Nigeria is not a reliable source of gas to the West African Gas Pipeline, according to him.

Nigeria is expected to provide Ghana with around 120 million metric tonnes of gas a day per the agreement but the West African country is only supplying around 50 million metric tonnes, which is far below expectation.

The policy direction is to seek low-cost energy generation from coal, Dr. Donkor said.

Dr. Joe Asamoah, Managing Director of Enerwise Africa, said there was the need for an integrated policy that would tap into the energy generation that would benefit the agricultural sector.

Meanwhile, Sunon Asogli Power Ghana Limited, a Ghanaian-Chinese Independent Power Producer (IPP), is finalizing arrangement to build Ghana’s first coal powered electricity generating plant at the cost of 1.5 billion dollars.

The first phase, which is expected to begin in 2016, would add 700 Megawatts to the national grid, and would be fed by coal imported from South Africa since Ghana does not have commercial quantities of the carbon mineral.