Government owes IPPs nearly $1bn, debt could affect power supply – IES

The Institute for Energy Security (IES Ghana) has projected continuous power outages because of a $1 billion debt owed Independent Power Producers.

According to the Institute, this is putting constraints on power generation and distribution.

Some 71 communities within the capital, Accra, are expected to experience intermittent power supply as a result of repair works on some bulk supply points and transmission cables in Accra.

The communities have been categorised into six groups, each of which will be without power from 6:00 pm to 12:00 am once a week, within the 22-day period announced by the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), which is expected to last between June 28 and July 19, 2021.

The outages, according to the power distributor, will allow the Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo) to complete the last phase of repair works on some bulk supply points and transmission cables in Accra.

The last phase of the repair and upgrade works, which begins on Monday, June 28, 2021, will see an upgrade in the Volta-Achimota-Mallam transmission lines.

However, the Institute for Energy Security [IES] Ghana thinks the maintenance challenges are a result of the financial constraints in the sector.

Nana Amoasi VII, the Executive Director of the institute, in a Citi News interview, said the debts could lead to more outages.

“There are transmission issues and distribution inefficiencies, and all these, you will need money to address them, and we have our energy sector debt go up, causing a lot of cashflow constraints for these utilities to change their systems.”

“So I can boldly tell you that the government owes the IPPs close to $1 billion. So every moment you see the debt rising with the sector and that cash constraints create a lot of maintenance challenges, that affects the reliability of power supply.”