President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo–Addo has performed a ceremony to officially commission the first gas for the 470 megawatts Karpowership at the Sekondi Naval Base in the Western Region.
“This marks the beginning of the installation of secured set of power to drive the country’s industrialization agenda”, Nana Akufo-Addo said when he turned on the valve for receipt of first gas.
The 470 megawatts Karadeniz Karpowership was originally operating in Tema using Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO) and was costing the country some nine million dollars every month.
However, the government took a decision to relocate the Karpowership to Sekondi to use natural gas from the Sankofa Fields to power it and in so doing save the country millions of dollars.
The karpowership will be supplied with about 90mmscf/d from the Ghana National Gas Company to generate 470 megawatts of electricity into the national grid.
President Akufo-Addo was delighted that Ghana will save billions of dollars due to the use of natural gas as the primary source of fuel for the operation of the karpowership.
“This is where the gas of our country originates so we are talking about a facility where the gas is right next door and can feed the facility easily and there are several savings that come out as a result now that we are going to use gas as a primary fuel or primary source of power generation in the country. We are talking significant sums of money over the course of the next 10 years. We looking at something in excess of a billion dollars worth of savings in generation of power via gas”.
He was particularly happy that the new arrangement will help bring down the cost of electricity.
The President indicated that creating a secured source of fuel to power the country’s power generating plants is a priority for his government and that, the karpowership is a demonstration of that commitment.
“That is our main goal. …that we are going to now move away from exporters and producers of raw materials to being an industrial economy”.
Energy Minister Peter Amewu said the fact that there was no interruption in power supply during the relocation process of the karpowership attest to the good energy management system by the Akufo-Addo government.
“Gone were the days when we were told that the gas pipeline from Nigeria to Ghana was broken as a result of a ship activity. What Ghana saw during that period was three years in darkness. I am happy to state that under the Akufo–Addo government 450 karpowership was relocated from Tema to Takoradi without a single notice in the energy transmission system”.
The Managing Director of Karpowership, Volkan Buyukbicer commended stakeholders for the high level of cooperation that saw to the success of a smooth relocation process.
Western Region Minister Kobby Otchere Darko Mensah assured that as “host region we are going to make sure we have the necessary oversight to make sure it is safe here in our region.
“This power ship is producing power at a cheaper cost than what has happened previously and for that matter having this project here in the Western Region also means that more companies can also set their production lines in the Western Region”.
A ten-kilometer gas pipeline has been built to transport gas from the Ghana National Gas Company’s Takoradi Regulating and Metering Station through the Onshore Terminal Station to the Karpowership.
By Eric Yaw Adjei | Connect FM | 3news.com