H.E. John Peter Amewu, Minister of Energy for Ghana, has told investors there are plenty of investment opportunities in the power sector
Speaking at the DLO Power Roundtable London event on 29 October, he stated the sector was in a much healthier place than just a few years ago since it adopted its energy sector recovery programme.
Since 2012, the government has been forced to pay for power not generated or consumed under previously agreed flawed 'take-or-pay' contracts with IPPs, costing the government US$500mn a year.
But from August this year the government has been engaging with each of the IPPs to reduce capacity charges and change existing contracts to take-and-pay - meaning it pays for energy and gas that the country actually consumes.
He told delegates, "New investments in power generation beyond the year 2024 are still expected, considering our demand for power. Ghana is growing at almost 250MW-300MW per annum. After 2024, we will no longer be subject to power generation [agreements] through negotiations. Generation [agreements] will take on a competitive nature. We believe with true competition we will be able reduce the excess capacity charges that we have been confronted with over the past years."
The minister also mentioned that Ghana was exporting around 240MW of combined power on a daily basis to Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Benin and Togo.
He added, "My colleagues in Burkina Faso, a week ago, let me understand that their demand will be in the arena of 400MW-500MW."
In the area of renewable energy, he stated that there are more than 20 islands and 2,000 communities that cannot be connected to the national grid in 2020, adding that, "The government agenda for Electricity for All, is to have a penetration rate of almost 90 per cent by the year 2020. The idea is to provide these communities with decentralised solutions. Opportunities exist therefore for feasibility studies and development for embedded technologies in that region."
