Karpowership Ghana Company Limited is supplying 470 Megawatts (MW) of power to the national grid to boost power supply, the Project Manager of the company, Michelle Hazel, has disclosed.
Speaking at a media engagement in Takoradi on Thursday, she assured that the company, with an installed capacity of 470 megawatts of power, would continue to provide an efficient, reliable power supply to the country.
She said Karpowership had undertaken an off-take of Ghana’s indigenous natural gas to meet government’s commercial obligations, and also pre-financed the construction of the transmission lines costing $8 million.
Additionally, Karpowership had invested $3 million on site preparation, hiring of sub- contractors for daily operations.
Ms Hazel told journalists that Karpowership Ghana signed a Power Purchase (PPA) agreement with Electricity Company of Ghana in June 2014 to supply a total of 470MW of power to the national grid.
Karpowership was relocated in August, 2019 to the western naval enclave to utilise Ghana’s indigenous natural gas.
She continued, “Karpowership is a floating plant, either for self propelled or barge-mounted operated on both natural gas Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) and heavy fuel oil to provide the most competitive electricity in three to six months.”
Karpowership, the project manager stated, operated in 15 countries in three continents, providing diversified high growth unique power generation enterprise based on Floating Storage Regasification Unit.
In Ghana, she reported Karpowership provided 23 per cent of the country’s energy needs with installed capacity of 470MW, stressing “Ghana is a replica of sub- regional presence.”
For example, countries like the Gambia, Sierra Leone, Guinea Conakry, Guinea Bissau, Senegal and Ivory Coast now used Karpower partnerships, some even up to 100 per cent, Ms Hazel said.
“Senegal is dominantly using renewable power such as the solar power and able to provide frequency stability for their grid. In Sierra Leone, they’re talking about the Karpowership and rely on the Independent Power Producers to keep the sector in check,” she revealed.
She argued some redundancies in the power sector would be curbed with the involvement of private sector “to ensure that there’s some efficiency, productivity and regular supply of renewable power”.
Ms Hazel added, “Electricity is the backbone of the country and with Karpowership, we could save livelihoods and the economy. It’s already a revolutionary technology that has been done anywhere in the world.”
FROM CLEMENT ADZEI BOYE, TAKORAD
