American multinational conglomerate, General Electric (GE) is to build a 1000-megawatt (MW) thermal power plant in Ghana.

The plant, which will be powered by gas, will take five years to complete.

However, the first phase of the project is expected to be completed by September 2016 and will add 360MW power to the national grid.

Ghana presently has installed generation capacity of about 2,412 megawatts and dependable generation capacity of 2,125 MW.

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of GE Ghana, Mr. Leslie Nelson was quoted as saying that GE will tomorrow, Tuesday, May 6, 2014 sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Ministry of Energy to commence the project.

This was contained in a release copied to The Finder.

He said the GE initiative, known as Ghana 1000, would contribute significantly to addressing the power needs of the country.

He explained that the Ghana 1000 initiative is a pure Independent Power Producer (IPP) initiative, requiring no direct financial contribution from the Government of Ghana.

Mr. Nelson said government’s role is essentially to create the enabling environment and a regulatory framework that would help the project sponsors to add power to the national grid quickly.

He disclosed that GE would also inaugurate a new office in Accra located at Stanbic Heights (Airport City).

The new office, according to the CEO, represents the company’s commitment to growing its business in Ghana.