Akosombo Dam: The story is the same

A tour of the Akosombo Dam on Tuesday by a team of journalists, including Public Agenda’s reporter has revealed that it is only a matter of time for the Dam to be shut down; though officials are optimistic of a turnaround soon. Currently the water level drops at an alarming rate of 0.04 daily, and this means that one of the two turbines being used to generate electricity for domestic and industrial use will have to be shut down by the end of this month or sooner.

The Director of Hydro Generation at VRA, Ing. Kirki Koffi virtually confirmed Public Agenda’s article “Goodbye Aksombo Dam” when he told the journalists that if the loss of water at that level continues, the authorities will have no option than to shut one of the two turbines and review the current load shedding exercise.

With an installed capacity of 1,020 megawatts, the Dam currently produces only 270 megawatts with two turbines. It will generate a mere 135 megawatts with one turbine.

Ing. Koffi said currently the water situation is at a level that can best be described as very critical, even though they are hoping that the rains will start falling any time next month. He said the rains that fell over the weekend in the Northern part of the country was good news and hoped there will be more rains to allow the various tributaries connected to the dam to bring in more water.

He said currently the water level is hovering around 235.04 and this is the lowest level since 1984 when the water level dropped to 235.76 as a result of a nation wide drought. This time though the rains are falling the inflows are virtually low.

Ing. Koffi said as much as the condition prevailing currently is not best for the effective running of the dam the authorities were optimistic the machines are not being overstretched beyond their design limits.

According to him, the Volta River Authority is in touch with government to ensure that alternative sources to support the dam are brought on board by the end of the year.

Ing. Koffi said currently the VRA is building a new plant at Tema and was hopeful it would start full operation by the end of the year while hopeful that the power plant that has been acquired by the mining companies will be operational by the end of next month.

Ing. Koffi revealed to the Public Agenda that the government spends about $2 million every month on crude oil to serve the thermal plant and hoped the importation of the energy serving bulbs will help cut down the amount of energy consumption in the country.

During the visit Public Agenda met with a Nigerian delegation that had come to learn from their Ghanaian counterparts on how they are dealing with the current energy crises.

The delegation revealed to this reporter that the current energy crisis facing the country is more of a continental problem because many of the dams in Nigeria have been experiencing the lowest inflows of water in the past forty years.