The Ghana National Gas Company Limited says it has successfully completed its tie-in works to the Volta River Authority at the Takoradi Regulatory and Metering System at Aboadze in the Western Region.
According to the Ghana National Gas Company, this will ensure the supply of natural gas to power thermal plants in Aboadze as well as those in Tema, to end the erratic power outages being experienced across the country.
Speaking to journalists after a working visit of the project site at the Aboadze VRA site, the Head of Communications at Ghana Gas, Ernest Owusu Bempah, revealed that 90% of the projected work is complete.
“We are ahead of time and have been able to complete the major works, that is a tie-in to VRA [which is] doing about 110 million cubic feet of gas to generate about 600 megawatts of energy," he added.
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He said this development will ensure a reverse flow of gas and boost the Nigerian Gas flow of 90 million cubic feet of gas which is 500 megawatts - in the event of any shortfall- to forestall any further power outages popularly known in local Ghanaian parlance as "Dumsor."
Last week, Deputy Energy Minister in charge of Power, William Owuraku Aidoo, on behalf of government apologised to Ghanaians for the current erratic supply of power in the country.
“On behalf of the Honourable Minister and the President, of course, I want to apologise for what is happening and assure you that we are doing all we can to bring the supply of electricity to normalcy,†he told journalists at a news conference.
Mr. Aidoo then indicated power supply would return to normal once the engineers from Ghana Gas complete the tie-in works in about 12-days.
The latest development, however, means the engineers had delivered ahead of the scheduled time as they had assured.
Mr. Owusu Bempah, however, said there will be commissioning and testing of the work undertaken for a period of time as some civil works are being undertaken.
IES predicts more dumsor in Ghana
The Institute of Energy Security, IES, has predicted more dumsor in Ghana due to the severe liquidity challenges facing the Energy sector making it difficult for government to fuel plants to power electricity.
In an interview with Citi FM, Executive Director of the Institute for Energy Security (IES), Paa Kwasi Anamuah Sakyi is convinced that Ghana is facing severe liquidity challenges and Ghanaians should expect more power outages (dumsor) in the coming days.
According to him, Ghanaians can no longer take the assurances from the Energy Minister that dumsor is over.
"the effect on the power sector is that we cannot guarantee a reliable supply of power, it means that the recurring power outages will linger on for a while, we can't tell how long that is going to take because this is not the first time the Minister has promised us that we are out of dumsor, in November he did indicate that we will not see dumsor, in March he said that the challenge is over then in April it means we cannot trust any word that comes from government until we are able to solve the liquidity challenges in the sector that is the only way, the twelve days the Minister gave is almost over. The pipeline has been interconnected if the system is not resilient, if the system is not upgraded and maintained with cash we will have problems there as well, we are not out of dumsor unless we are able to fix the financial challenges in the sector."