GRIDCo completes work on transmission lines

The Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo), Mr. William Amuna says the company has completed work on the transmission lines which have since been hooked to the Smelter Station, awaiting to further hook the lines to the framework on the powership.

This would pave way for the test run to be conducted on the Karpowership for power production which in the ensuing days will begin the production of some 225 megawatts (mw) of electricity.

Mr. Amuna said this at an inspection tour of the vessel at the Tema Fishing Habour, where the vessel docked.

A second facility with the same megawatts capacity is expected to be delivered soon to Ghana, in consonance with a power purchase agreement (PPA) Karpower Ghana signed with the Electricity Company of Ghana.

Per the agreements, the two powerships would generate some 450 megawatts for a period of 10 years.

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Karpower Ghana, Mr. Orhan Remzi Karadeniz addressing the media indicated the project is one of the quickest power barges produced at a very lower cost by the company.

He said Karpower had invested a total of US$30million on mobilisation, site preparation, marine infrastructure works along with fuel supply, storage management and grid interconnection.

“We have made arrangements with an independent supplier for the supply of Low Sulphur Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO) to be used to power the barge to ensure an uninterrupted production at the facility”, Mr Karadeniz stated.

He explained that officials have also put instituted a dedicated shuttle vessel for the purposes of supplying fuel from the onshore storage facility to the on-board storage tanks of the power ship.

Mr Karadeniz, described the barge as the largest foreign direct investment (FDI) by a Turkish company in Ghana, and was hopeful that the venture would be economically beneficial to both countries.