The former CEO of Gridco, Ing William Amuna, has disclosed Ghana for the past few days exports power to Ivory Coast, Benin and Togo.
“Through our collective effort, we have been able to restore electricity supply to Ghana. Today, we have over 25percent of our installed capacity on standby and we do not import power,” he said Tuesday at an Energy forum by Siemens.
“We export power. In fact, for the past few days Ghana has been exporting 100 megawats to La Cote d’Ivoire… for the past three days. I guess they have a few problem within their system. Togo has a similar problem and for the past three days not only at peak we give them about 120 megawats,” he added.
On his part, the CEO of Siemens Ghana Edmund Acheampong has attributed the growth being witnessed in the Ghanaian economy to the recent stability in the supply of electricity in the country.
“In 2015…as my fellow Ghanaians will recall, at the highest of the energy challenges in Ghana, we all saw the crippling effect it had on the economy.
“However, from late 2016 till date we see gradual improvements in the supply of electricity for industrial and domestic use [and] we are beginning to see the Ghanaian economy revitalized as a result,” he said.
Ghana’s annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the year 2017 grew by 8.5 percent, according to the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS). Also, per provisional trade data from the Bank of Ghana (BoG), Ghana in the first two months of 2018 recorded a trade surplus of US$584.5million.
Mr. Acheampong, who was speaking Tuesday April 17 at Siemens Customer Day forum, continued, saying: “This underscores the importance of the electrification as a catalyst for economic growth.”
Acknowledging the country’s growing population, from about 24 million in 2010 to 29 million in 2018, he said “the impact of this on the economy, the country’s energy needs is obvious…as government together with businesses scale up industrialization across the country, Ghana’s [energy] needs will expand.”
On that note, he said “Siemens is here to provide the cutting age technology and solutions for Ghana,” as the need for adequate power generation and supply for both domestic and industrial use becomes more urgent with the increasing population numbers.
Making reference to Siemen’s legacy in Ghana over the past two years in oil and gas, industrialization and energy, Mr. Acheampong said through partnership with local firms his outfit is contributing close to 330 megawats of power into the national grid.
In addition, he said Siemens is supplying three compression trench to support the gas compressing station.
Together with Rotan Energy, Mr. Acheampong said Siemens will develop and build the most “efficient” and environmentally friendly thermal plant in Ghana with the capacity of about 660 megawats.
Source: Ghana/Starrfmonline.com/103.5FM
