13 June 2014 Last updated at 12:00 BST
Ghana is experiencing an energy crisis.
Daily blackouts and the rising cost of electricity have had a damaging effect on business and on the economy as a whole.
Suzanne Vanhooymissen reports from the oil city of Takoradi, in western Ghana.

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-27831040

[size=15pt]Ghana Faces Blackout[/size]

If you think that the energy crisis the country is going through will soon come to an end, you must be living in dream land. The situation is rather exacerbating day in and out, due to the drastic fall in power generation, which has already been outstripped by supply.

The development has resulted in the constant shedding of power across the country by the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG).

Though the ECG published schedules for the load shedding for consumers to know when their power would go off, and the time to expect supply, this was hardly followed due to tenacious orders to the ECG by the Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo) to shed more power than earlier agreed.

The Chronicle gathered that earlier this week, GRIDCo ordered the ECG to shed 220 megawatts of power per day, which the power distribution company complied with, even though it fell outside its published schedules.

In the afternoon of yesterday, The Chronicle again, gathered that GRIDCo had instructed the ECG to shed, this time, as much as 400 megawatts, which is more than the entire power consumption of the Central, Volta, Eastern and Ashanti Regions, due to power generation shortfall at both Tema and Aboadze.

Charts obtained by The Chronicle indicate that Eastern Region consumes between 70-80 megawatts per day, whilst that of the Ashanti Region hovers around 180-200 within the same period. Central Region also consumes between 50-60mw, with the Volta Region guzzling 50-60 megawatts each day.

The Public Relations Manager of the ECG, Mr. William Boafo, told The Chronicle in a telephone interview yesterday, that there was already a suggestion that they should spare the Greater Accra Region of the emergency load shedding exercise, but looking at the magnitude of power (400mg) they are being asked to shed, any attempt to protect Greater Accra would lead to a total collapse of the system.


According to William Boafo, they had already started shedding the 400 megawatts as requested by GRIDCO, mainly for the residential consumers, who are bearing the brunt of the power crisis, because of the decision to spare industries of the Gordian Knot the Volta River Authority is struggling to untie.

Parts of the country that went off last night (7:00 p.m.) are expecting to get back power this morning (8:00 a.m.), which is almost 15 hours of power cut.

The ECG PRO told The Chronicle that his outfit could not be blamed for the erratic power supply, because they only distribute what has been made available to them by GRIDCo. He, nevertheless, blamed the current situation on the destruction caused to the West African Gas Pipeline, which has cut off gas supply to the country.

According to him, the Asogli Plant alone produces about 180 megawatts of power per day, but is currently sitting idle, because there is no gas to power it, as the plant is fired with only gas.

Some industry players who spoke to The Chronicle as at press time last night, blamed engineers at the VRA for failing to do proper forecasting resulting in the current situation, where demand for electric power has completely outstripped what the VRA could produce.

Ghana was last year described as one of the fast growing economies in the world, with an annual growth rate of 14% of the Gross Domestic Products (GDP). Unfortunately, there has not been the corresponding increase in the supply of power to meet the new status of the economy.
http://allafrica.com/stories/201302191362.html

And I read it somewhere that "Ghana Plans To Export Electricity To Nigeria"... abi this one na news trick ni?

They want to export to Nigeria....


...Learners.

[size=15pt]Current energy crisis is the most badly handled in Ghana's history- Minority[/size]

The Minority in Parliament says President John Dramani Mahama and his NDC government must be blamed for the current energy crisis being experienced by Ghanaians, describing it as the most badly handled in the country’s history.

According to the group, the crisis was not caused by low levels of water in the Akosombo Dam which has been the usual cause of energy crisis, but that it was caused by shortage of gas and financial difficulties of the VRA which makes it difficult to procure the right quantities of crude oil and diesel to bring all their Plants into operation.

The Minority asserted that these factors are within the government’s control and we should not allowed to bring the level of energy crisis ongoing now.

Addressing the Press on the Minority’s version of the State of Nation, the Minority Leader Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu noted that gas is cheaper than light crude but if ones source of gas applied is not secure what is important is to improve on the liquidity of VRA to produce the alternative light crude oil.

He said the NPP government use to support the VRA to procure light crude oil about 40 million dollars every month, but this support was withdrawn by the NDC government, adding that this in addition to about 400 million dollars of governments indebtedness to VRA has crippled the company and made it difficult to procure these fuels for power generation.

“The President has failed to solve this problem and is rather promising additional new generation capacity. The new generation capacity they are promising were started by the NPP government namely Takoradi-3 Thermal Plant and Bui- Hydro project which together will add about 532 MW of generation capacity” he said.

The Minority Leader, Hon. Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu noted that before the NPP left government in 2008, three other generation projects were either completed or advanced – the Tema 1 Thermaol Plant (126 MW), Tema 2 Thermal Plant (50 MW) and Kpone Thermal Plant (230 MW) which was 20% completed.
Other private initiatives were supported by the NPP government –Asogli (200MW), Osonor (cent 126 MW) and TEN power (330 MW) Thermal Project.

He asserted that but for these initiatives the prices would have been worse, and challenge to the NDC to tell Ghanaians what new investments they have initiated since they came to power in 2009, adding that what is known to Ghanaians is the 2 Megawatts solar power plant in Navrongo
http://www.ghanamps.gov.gh/news-events/details.php?id=2867

Hh

[size=15pt]Investigating Ghana's energy crisis[/size]

Ghana's energy crisis began last August - and continues today, with estimates that it could cost the country's economy millions of dollars.

As the winner of the BBC's NewsMaker competition - I am more usually a teaching assistant at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology - I wanted to investigate the cause and effect of the energy problem.

It has been attributed mainly to the dwindling water levels in the Volta Lake at Ghana's only hydroelectric plant, Akosombo Hydro.

However, the obsolete and poorly-maintained equipment, used for generations, and the distribution of electrical power in the country, could also be blamed. The country continues to suffer from frequent power cuts.

Recent research by Data Bank, one of Ghana's leading financial providers, suggests the country could lose up to $1.4 billion by the end of the year if the situation does not improve soon.

And Ghana's National Labour Department statistics show that about 33 companies filed for insolvency between September 2006 and March 2007 and over 2,300 workers have lost their jobs.

Bitter complaints

While the power crisis cannot be directly accountable for these figures, no-one would argue that it is not a contributing factor.

Families are also feeling the impact - going through financial crisis due to the laying off of workers. Some told me they are being torn apart, the education of their children being affected as they struggle to pay school fees.

new mother Tonye Amedume and baby Seshie
Families say the energy crisis is making their lives uncomfortable
The people I spoke to in the capital Accra are fed up with the situation, and the youth in particular are losing confidence in the government's ability to solve the problem.

They say nobody knows who and what to believe anymore.

On the streets, they complain bitterly. I was told quite simply that life was uncomfortable with the unreliable power supply.

Desperation and confusion can be felt among people and businesses in Ghana - which is really bad news for the country which is seen to be the beacon of Africa.

Ghana's Deputy Energy Minister KT Hammond told me he sympathised, and assured the public that the government had the situation firmly under control. He said it had put in ardent measures to solve the problem.

And Deputy Information Minister Oboshie Sai recently told Ghanaians that the energy crisis would be over by 30 September this year.

But this is not the first time a government official has put out a date by which the power crisis should cease. The government continues to do its best to allay fears and offers assurances that it is trying its hardest.

But many question whether its best enough to end the discomfort of the people of Ghana?

Listen to Barbara's and others reports

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6692605.stm

And they say them wan give us light....




I no blame una, na the st*pid smellows wen call themselves Nigerian politicians I blame.

[size=15pt]Blackout Hits Accra[/size]

RESIDENTS IN most parts of Accra were plunged into total darkness for 24 hours Wednesday night following an explosion that occurred at the Achimota sub-station located at Dzorwulu in Accra.

The explosion curtailed over 186 megawatts of power from the 240 megawatts capacity required to supply power to Accra, and left only 54 megawatts for Accra East.

The Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo) has explained that a technical problem with one of the power lines feeding into the substation at Dzorwulu was the cause of Wednesday evening's explosion.

The situation got exacerbated by another fault on one of its lines at East Legon the same day, while the outage also affected Tema and parts of the Akwapim range.

Albert Quainoo, Head of Public Relations at GRIDCo, explaining the situation to journalists in Accra yesterday, said the country still had a power deficit problem which had to be fixed, adding that it was an issue of demand and supply.

Meanwhile, GRIDCo has indicated that 'all parts of Accra have received light except areas that have been scheduled for load shedding.'

Following the incident, Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah, Minister of Energy and Petroluem, has given assurance that government would build a new substation to contain the power cuts in Accra.

Meanwhile, GRIDCo maintains it has now restored power to the affected places.

Achimota, Dzorwulu, Osu, Teshie, La, Adenta, Madina, parts of Kasoa, Abeka and Tema, were the most affected areas.

The situation made power distributors, Electricity Company of Ghana, unable to service its clients.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.modernghana.com/news/541629/1/blackout-hits-accra.html

The same guys that want to export electricity to 9ja? lol

I thought they said "Ghana Plans to Import Electricity to Nigeria".

the mahama guy is so clueless.he has destroyed d economy in record time

Facts and figure about Ghana power. According to Volta river Authority which is ghana formost energy coy, http://www.vraghana.com/resources/facts.php

the total energy production in ghana is summarised below.

where as Nigeria's Mambilla 3050MW hydroelectric power plant currently under construction in Taraba state by china sinohydro http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/fg-approves-1-72-bn-counterpart-funding-for-hydro-dams/149335/ alone has more installed capacity for electricity generation than all the power plants in the whole of Ghana

Atouke: Facts and figure about Ghana power. According to Volta river Authority which is ghana formost energy coy, http://www.vraghana.com/resources/facts.php

the total energy production in ghana is summarised below.

where as Nigeria's Mambilla 3050MW hydroelectric power plant currently under construction in Taraba state by china sinohydro http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/fg-approves-1-72-bn-counterpart-funding-for-hydro-dams/149335/ alone has more installed capacity for electricity generation than all the power plants in the whole of Ghana

this sum up your whole post.

and their loud mouth president is telling the whole world that he is exporting power to Naija

Op, do you feel better now?