The Institute of Energy Security (IES) wants the government to find pragmatic ways to purchase and store adequate quantities of alternative fuel for the country’s power generation plants.
The IES argues that may largely help in stabilizing power generation and supply.
The suggestion comes on the back of the recent erratic power supply that has hit parts of the country.
The Executive Director of the IES, Kwasi Anamuah Sakyi admits that the recurrent power issues are partly as a result of huge debts on the books of GRIDCo and some other power producers.
He says the government’s ability to secure funds to stock Light Crude Oil and other fuels, will be a preferred option.
“We believe that if we have stock of this fuel, we will need money to store other fuel sources as a backup and then we can only pray that the Akosombo Dam will have appreciable levels. We used to do about 60 percent of thermal while hydro was 40 percent. For the past week, hydro is doing about 50 percent,” he noted.
He added: “Anytime we have a challenge with natural gas, we should be prepared to fall on another form of fuel so that we do not get the shock.”
The government has adduced many reasons to the current power situation.
In all instances, it has strongly argued against the acceptance of the resumption of power rationing.
The Energy Minister, John Peter Amewu has suggested that the difficulty to transport gas from Takoradi in the West to Tema in the East, had partly accounted for the problem.
But for industry analysts, the core issue is the outstanding debt on the books of companies like GRIDCo and ECG.
ACEP casts doubt over Meralco patnership
In all these however, the Africa Centre for Energy Policy has hinted of some teething issues on ECG’s debts despite the coming on board of a private partner.
“If you have excess, ECG will have to deal with it and it is the government of Ghana that has guaranteed in those power plants…there’s a component of power that has to be sold and if there’s no nobody to buy it. The agreements that we sign, the cost is so expensive you cannot even sell it to the sub region because you are uncompetitive,” Director of ACEP, Benjamin Boakye emphasized.
Meanwhile in solving the issues perpetually, Mr. Anamuah Sakyi refers to solving the underlying causes of the legacy debts.
–
Source: Citibusinessnews.com
