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ECG sheds 600MW of power

The country’s energy crisis seems to be worsening as ECG sheds over 600 megawatts of power

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The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) has been forced to shed 600 megawatts of power at a time when Ghanaians expect the power crisis in the country to improve.

The Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo) requested the ECG to start shedding about 600 megawatts (MW) of power.

The directive to the ECG stemmed from the insufficient generation of power and to some technical problems with the VRA’s power plants in the Western Region and other power plants across the country.

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The GRIDCo off-peak load-relief request affected 210MW of power to the Greater Accra Region; 120MW to Ashanti; 120MW to Tema; 60MW to Western; 40MW each to Central and Eastern, and 20MW to the Volta Region.

Currently, the Tema power enclave, which plays host to the Mine Reserve Plant (MRP), the Siemens Plant, SSNIT’s CENIT Plant, the Asogli Plant and the VRA’s TTPC Plant, contributes significantly to the country’s energy mix.

Four of the plants, the MRP, Siemens, Cenit and Asogli run on only natural gas, while the TTPC could run on either natural gas or crude oil if it is available.

All those units which run on only natural gas are down and the low pressure is only feeding one unit of Asogli, which is not enough to take care of the shortfall.

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With improved gas from Nigeria, the country reduced the load between 200MW and 280MW, which was manageable, until the surge to almost 600MW.

Meanwhile, energy experts have predicted that the ongoing load-shedding will extend beyond 2015.

Kwame Jantuah said, "We are leaving the problems to meet us before we plan for them. Dumsor, dumsor is not going to end by end of this year, it’s impossible."

Kwadwo Poku on his part stated that, "We are going to have maybe six hours of light-off in a day. Dumsor as we know it is going to take a long time."

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