Electricity challenges fixed, lights on across country — Energy Minister

The Minister of Energy, Herbert Krapa, has assured Ghanaians that the challenges that culminated in the recent erratic power supply in some parts of the country have been resolved.

He stated that the power supply shortfall was largely due to the suspension of power delivery services by Sunon Asogli Power Plant for commercial reasons, a problem that has been amicably dealt with.

The shortfall was further exacerbated by the reduced capacity of the Karpowership from 450MW to 50MW because of a fault on the pressure control valve at the Ghana National Gas Company (GNGC) Sekondi Regulation and Metering Station (SRMS).

Speaking in an interview with the Daily Graphic, Mr Krapa said the situation was aggravated by maintenance work being carried out by Amandi Power Plant, which started on November 15, this year and the plant was expected back to full operation on December 7, this year.

The Energy Minister indicated that during the period of maintenance, the 200MW capacity of the plant would be unavailable for power generation.

Sunon Asogli

Mr Krapa explained that the government reached a settlement with Sunon Asogli Power (Ghana) Limited on the commercial issues which resulted in the suspension of operations, creating a deficit of about 560MW, adding that “thankfully the plant has resumed full operation on Monday, November 25, 2024, with all its capacity available for power generation.”

The Minister of Energy disclosed that the engineers at GNGC, working together with their counterparts from Belgium, had also ameliorated challenges at the Sekondi Regulation and Metering Station.

That, he explained, had restored full gas supply to the Karpowership which had since last Monday been delivering at full capacity of 450MW to the national grid.

Going forward

Mr Krapa emphasised that going forward, the government had put in place measures to ensure that a dedicated team of engineers would be on the alert across the country to address any unforeseen challenges that might arise in the power distribution and transmission network across the country.