President John Mahama has directed the Power Ministry to as a matter of urgency fast track the procurement of power barges to complement Ghana’s power sector as the Akosombo contemplates shutting down one of its turbines.
[contextly_sidebar id=”DBnnd2oyQU1D3M5Q31dbeT5WaBwcc8EO”]The president made this known after a working tour of the Akosombo plant where engineer’s onsite briefed him on the state of affairs.
Akosombo currently runs four units out of the six units available, but engineers say to conserve the water in the dam and a unit must be shut down.
The Director of Engineering services Department of the Volta River Authority (VRA), Engineer William Sam Appiah told the President that they would shut down one of the turbines immediately the power barges are in place and working.
He added that “With the current situation, if the thermal will come in and do well, we will be able to go to the better scenarios so that we can save the day and that is what we are waiting for. Hopefully, if the thermals come in we can cut back a little. But we can’t do that know because the thermals are not in.”
Briefing the media after his tour, President promised government’s commitment to finding lasting solutions to the nations power challenges.
He said “I’ve given a direction to the ministry of power to bring in emergency power of about 750 megawatts this year. And so if we bring additional emergency thermal power then probably we can shut down another unit of Akosombo so that we have the lake level restored and we all have to pray that almighty God sends down the rain in 2015 so that the lake can be restored to itself.”
He explained that the government has been forced take such decision because of the falling water levels in the dam adding that “It is obvious that the lake level is low as a result of two years of less than average rainfall. It means that we are just 5 feet above the minimum operating level and so Akosombo is only running only four units.”
He said with the introduction of the emergency power badges, the hydro plant will only be used as a backup for Ghana’s power sector.
“I think this backs up what I said two days ago that increasingly we need to make thermal our own main source of power and manage our hydro resources as supplementary backup.”
President Mahama on Tuesday also visited the Sunon Asogli Power Plant, the Cenit Thermal Power Plant and the VRA Thermal Plant all located at Kpone near Tema after which he assured that Ghana will come out of the power crisis which has bedeviled the country.
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By: Godwin Allotey Akweiteh/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @AlloteyGodwin