The Minister of Power, Dr Kwabena Donkor has justified the need to increase electricity tariffs.
According to him, Ghana was shifting from cheaper means of generating power, hence the need to pay a cost reflective tariff to cover the cost of generation as well as expand the capacities of the systems in place to guarantee the stability of power.
“The days of cheap power are over. We have to turn to other sources of power which will not come cheap,” he stated.
Electricity providers are demanding a 100 per cent increment in tariffs.
Bulk substation
Dr Donkor said this when he cut the sod for the construction of a 396MVA bulk supply substation by Enclave Power Company Limited (EPC), a privately owned Ghanaian holding company at Dawa in the Greater Accra Region.
EPC is part of a LMI Holdings a wholly Ghanaian holding company with assets in excess of $250 million and with subsidiary companies.
The bulk supply substation, which would be the largest substation in Ghana when completed is to serve a 3,000 acre industrial park.
Estimated to cost $80million, the project is expected to be completed in 2017 and it will supply power to industries, commercial and residential locations.
End to Dumsor
Aside from the Electricity Company of Ghana and the Northern Electricity Distribution Company (NEDCo), which are quasi-governmental organisations, the EPC is the only private company that distributes power.
Meanwhile, Dr Donkoh said work was on going on various projects to ensure that the power crisis also known as dumsor came to an end by close of the year.
The Karpowership projects which would add a total of 225 MW to the national, he said was expected to arrive in the country in the next three weeks.
In addition, Dr Donkor indicated that other projects such as the Kpone Thermal Power Plant, TICO expansion, AMERI plants were expected to come on stream to give the country more than 700MW by the end of the year.
EPC Director
On the EPC project, he said the initiative by the Ghanaian owned company was evidence of the great contribution that the private sector could make in achieving the goal of providing Ghana with reliable power supply.
The Executive Director of LMI Holdings, Mr Ernest Owusu-Afari in his address said the company has been supplying industrial and commercial power to customers since the year 2000 and has so far already distributed electricity to 60 industrial and commercial customers.
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