Ghana to ration electricity

Ghana may need to ration electricity over the next 10 months because it does not have the capacity to replace plants that have been closed for repair.

Electric power continues to be a major issue on the domestic agenda. Despite downplayed power supply shortages earlier this year, the state-owned electricity producer has said that the company has no reserves, though demand and supply are all the same.

Ghana is currently only able to supply 2,000 MW of power, out of an installed capacity of 2,800 MW, because some thermal plants are down for maintenance and upgrades.
While that shortfall should end in May, the Volta River Authority (VRA) said, “we will ration power any time a plant has to shut down for maintenance or repairs” until early 2015 when the supply will increase by 330 MW due to newly refurbished plants.

The Ghana Grid Company Limited (GridCo) transmission company issued a statement in March claiming that an increase in annual peak demand from around 1,730 MW to just over 1,940 MW between 2012 and 2013, with current demand at approximately 1,980 MW, is the key driver of power shortages rather than reduced power generation, transmission and distribution. GridCo is under pressure from energy and petroleum minister Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah to increase its efficiency.
For more news and expert analysis about Ghana, please see Ghana Politics & Security.

© 2014 Menas Associates

Ghana: Government announces local content policy roadmap

The government's exact local content provisions and targets have been the cause of considerable debate, with a series of local content pronouncements being undermined by the lack of implementation of a defined policy.

At a recent Volta River Authority (VRA) organised forum on local content – which was attended by stakeholders including the Association of Ghana Industries – the Deputy Minister of Energy Emmanuel Kofi Armah-Buah claimed that parliament is focusing on the issue with the goal of finally implementing an official local content policy.

He claimed that, when implemented, the policy would have a number of goals, including:

increasing Ghanaian participation in the oil and gas sector to 90 per cent by 2020
the favouring of bids with higher local content over comparable bids with lower local content
priority purchasing of local products and services from Ghanaian businesses and providers even if their prices for comparable products or work were up to 10 per cent higher than that from foreign equivalents
the need to give first priority to Ghanaians when awarding contracts.
He also commended Kosmos, Tullow, and the VRA among others for their efforts to support "local content" to date.

This announcement comes the same week as another by the 13 member Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC), which was inaugurated in September as specified by the 2011 Petroleum Revenue Management Act and includes the AGI, the Trades Union Congress, EITI and National House of Chiefs among others. PIAC pledged to monitor Ghana's oil industry closely, giving "a true account of the oil revenues to Parliament, the Executive and Ghanaians in general".

It also comes soon after comment by Dr Steve Manteaw of the Integrated Social Development Centre (ISODEC) who is also a leading member of the Civil Society Platform on Oil and Gas (CSPOG). He said that Ghana's small decline in Transparency International's global transparency ranking is partly due to the government's failure to ensure total transparency in oil contracts. He claimed that there is a perception of corruption possibly being increased because of the government's delays in passing of the Right to Information Bill and last year's dispute between the GNPC and Kosmos over oil exploration data.

For more news and expert analysis about Ghana, please see Ghana Politics & Security.

© 2011 Menas Associates