Sonon-Asogli to put up a 700mw coal-fired power plant

Shenzhen Energy Group (SEG), the mother Company of Sonon-Asogli, an Independent Power Producer in the power sub-sector, has proposed to build a 700MW coal-fired power plant in Ghana.

The project, which will take 24-30 months to complete, will also include the construction of a coal port with approximately 50,000 tons berth.

A Director at Shenzhen Energy Group, Mr. Hong Can, disclosed this when he paid a courtesy call on the Minister for Energy and Petroleum, Emmanuel Armah–Kofi Buah, at the Ministry. The visit was also to brief the minister and his team on proposed projects the group intends to execute in Ghana.

The project is expected to cost about 700M dollars and will need two million tons of coal per year to run when completed which, according to Mr. Can, will be imported from South Africa.

SEG also stated that desulfurization and electrostatic precipitator devices and technologies will be employed to increase the efficiency of the plant and minimize environmental pollution to the barest minimum.

SEG, who already operate different thermal plants of a total installed generation capacity of 8106MW with coal-fired plants constituting about 3700MW have decided to embark on this project because coal as a fuel is cheap, abundant, widely used, efficient, safe and that there are modern technologies to minimize environmental pollution.

The minister on his part thanked Shenzhen Energy Group for their continuous interest in Ghana's energy sector and welcomed the current proposal.

He indicated that Ghana has a target of increasing its current installed generation capacity of about 2,500MW to 5000MW by 2016, and the proposal of SEG with a vast experience in building and operating power plants could not have come at a better time.

The minister also indicated that the proposed project looks exciting, especially as it will be fired by coal, which is a cheaper fuel compared to gas and light crude oil. This, in his opinion, will translate to cheaper energy cost for both industries and households.

The minister, therefore, pledged the Ministry’s support for the project and requested SEG to present a roadmap of the project to the Ministry as soon as possible, highlighting the role government can play to bring the project to fruition.

The minister who was present with his two deputies, Hon. Ben Dagadu and Hon. John Jinapor also had the Chief Director, Prof. Thomas Akabzaa and Ag. Director of Power, Mr. Emmanuel Osafo in attendance.

The Shenzhen Energy Group was represented by Togbe Afede, Minghong Ding, Hong Can, Viangzhi Zoo and Xiaoha Li, the Chairman of Asogli power plant.