Ghana
will receive two electricity generating vessels from Turkey in March next month
to produce the equivalent of more than one fifth of Ghana's energy power.
The
two temporal power stations will operate from Tema and Takoradi ports and
produce up to 450 megawatts of power to Ghana's national electricity grid.
The
Turkish "Karpowership" Ghana Company will be supporting the
Electricity Company of Ghana. The Ministry of Energy and Petroleum, will
providing crude oil to Karpowership to deliver fast-track electricity to meet
the country's high energy demand.
Karpowership
Ghana Company Limited, a subsidiary of Karadeniz Energy Group, the energy wing
of the Turkey-based Karadeniz Holding, signed a ten-year power purchase
agreement in June with the state-run Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG).
According
to Ebenezer Baiden, a member of the tariff team at ECG, the company will build
two floating power stations at a total estimated cost of US$1.2 billion. The
cost of a ship is US$600 million, but this has been pre-financed by Karpower
because it is an independent power producer
Ghana
will only have to pay them every month when they start generating power from
May 1, 2015. ECG, which does not generate power and depends on various
state-owned and private power producers, has made a US$50-million commitment to
the deal.
It
is collateral to say that when they sail from Turkey to Ghana, we will not
relent on the deal, Baiden explained. We produced the bank guarantee to
Karpower to prove our commitment. The deal is believed to be the largest
Turkish investment project in Ghana.
Karadeniz
is the developer, owner and operator of a fleet of power ships with an overall
capacity of more than 1,100 megawatts. It currently has three ships in Iraq,
two in Lebanon, one in Pakistan and one in Dubai. The company reportedly
supplies 10 percent and 20 percent of Iraq's and Lebanon's respective
electricity needs.
The
power ships will dock at Tema and Takoradi Ports, Ghana's two port cities near
suitable grid interconnection points. They will contribute up to 450 megawatts
(MG) of power to Ghana's national electricity grid. It is projected that with
the two power ships, Karpowership Ghana will eventually supply 21% percent of
the country's power generation.
Karpowership
Ghana said the deal would be an economical solution to Ghana's existing
electricity supply which relies on expensive crude oil, while providing
employment and attracting badly needed foreign direct Investment in Ghana. With
the use of low-cost fuel, the power ships will deliver a total cost of
electricity into the grid that will enable a competitively priced tariff to
deliver savings for the government.
The
company's manager added that the power ships would initially use economic and
abundant Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO) to generate electricity, with transition to
natural gas during the project's second phase.
Baiden,
the Ghanaian official, said the power ships would run on HFO for the first five
years, switching to natural gas in the sixth year. While the ships are running
on HFO, Ghana will pay $0.19 for each unit per kilowatt. When they start
running on natural gas, the cost will fall to US$0.15.
Edward
Bawa, an Energy Ministry spokesman, said the power ships would help improve the
West African country's energy situation and there is also an issue where the
load demand is almost the same as the amount of power available, so the reserve
margin is non-existent. Technically, we are supposed to have about 20 percent
of our installed capacity being our reserved margin.
According
to Edward Bawa with this facility, anytime we have a challenge with any of our
internal plants, we can rely on it. So this will come in to plug that gap of
deficit that we have.
Credit:
FRANCIS TAWIAH (Duisburg - Germany)
Comments
Post a Comment