Were working to end "dumsor"- Energy Ministry

The Energy Ministry has given the assurance that it is working assiduously to put an end to the current load shedding Ghanaians are enduring.

A statement signed by the Head of Communications at the Ministry Edward Bawa said the ministry is working together with the various power agencies to put an immediate end to the problem.

The ministry attributes the current challenge to three main factors outlined below:

1.  Poor inflows of water into our hydro dams,



2.  Erratic fuel supply from Nigeria



3.  Non-availability of some generating units due to periodic maintenance.

It, however, provides the following strategies to fix the problem:

•  In the short term engineers are working around the clock to bring on stream the plants that are currently unavailable because of one challenge or the other.



• Government is currently bringing in a 450 MW capacity fully flexible and ready to deploy emergency power ship system to Ghana in two installments. The first and second units each of 225MW are expected to commence commercial operation in the 1st and 2nd Quarters of 2015 respectively.



•  Under the Ministry’s directive VRA has now engaged the service of an Operations and Maintenance Company (O&M) to work hand-in-hand with them to complement local skills and expertise in the optimum management of our thermal power plants which have recorded the lowest availability in recent times.



•  It is also anticipated that the completion of the 110MW expansion work on the TICO plant and Units 1 & 2 of the Kpone Thermal Power Plant (220MW) by the first quarter of 2015 will add more megawatts to the system.



• The Gas Processing Plant is currently undergoing commissioning. Even within this commissioning stage Plants at Aboadze are receiving significant processed gas from the Jubilee field. It is anticipated that the gas supply will gradually ramp up to 120MMSCF when the facility is in full operation.

The Ministry takes this opportunity to express its appreciation to Ghanaians for their understanding, even in the face of these temporal difficulties and wishes to promise that we will continuously work around the clock until this perennial challenge is eliminated.