Power crisis: Gas from WAGPco unsustainable – Engineer

A Ghanaian Engineer has said gas supply from the West Africa Gas Pipeline Company (WAGPco) cannot sustain Ghana’s thermal energy production.

“…It is not sustainable,” Robert Woode told MORNING STARR host Kafui Dey on STARR 1O3.5FM on Monday.

“Energy is a national security issue, let us not leave it in the hands of a third party,” Woode warned.

Ghana’s energy production has intermittently wobbled as a result of failure by the West Africa Gas Pipeline to supply regular gas to the country’s thermal plants to supplant power produced by the hydro-stations.

Currently, the country is experiencing worsening power crisis because power producers Volta River Authority (VRA) has shut down two of its six turbines due to the low water level it is operating with.

VRA has said it cannot run all six turbines in the current circumstance, and has therefore proposed that Ghanaians conserve energy during the crisis period.

VRA has explained that running all the turbines to supply 900 Megawatts of power will mean the Dam would have to be shut down early next year – a situation that rather worsen the situation.

The current crisis has led to some angry consumers in various parts of the country – Accra and Kumasi – to threaten to burn down ECG installations.

President John Mahama has set up a new ministry of power to try and resolve the current energy crisis.

It is expected that thermal power supply will see some improvement once the Atuabo Gas Plant starts delivering gas to the VRA for production purposes.