Ghana power supply crisis is to become a thing of the past after the government gave assurances that there will be steady power supply by the end of this year despite the gas supply challenges faced by the Atuabo gas plant.
According to Samuel Fletcher, the Volta River Authority (VRA) Head of Corporate Communications, significant measures are being put in place to normalize Ghana power supply outages. The authority is also hopeful that with the efforts that the government has put and the commitment it has shown, the nation will eventually overcome the power supply deficit.
Not so long ago, Ghana power supply experienced a critical power crisis during the load-shedding activities structured to between 300MW and 400MW of power. The activities allowed the end power users to access power for 12hours and be denied power for 24hours.
Moreover, the FPSO at the Jubilee field experienced unexpected shutdown by the Tullow Oil Ghana Company declaring unproductive processing of gas at the Atuabo gas plant which has led to power deficit to rise to 600MW compared to previous record which was at 400MW. The water levels at the Akosombo Hydropower Dam has also contributed to Ghana power supply challenges given that, only four turbines out of six turbines of the hydropower dam have be in operation.
Though some power plants do not require gas since they operate on crude oil, a product described to be heavier than normal gas. However, there are some machines which have been configured to operate on gas, and when there is no supply of gas to those machines they become dormant, which anyway still affects the power situation in Ghana.
According to Mr. Fletcher, machines that operate on gas perform better than machines operated on crude oil. He further explains that, apart from crude oil being heavier, it also has metal particles in it.
